


gold in the wreckage

by dolphins



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, a lot of physical hurt/comfort, angst hurricane, angsty angst, attempts at cooking, bundles of angry crying, closet perv yakov, comforting! yuuri, depictions of injury sorry, fluffy fluffy, glass cases of emotion, granddad plisetsky is my fav, hurt! yuri plisetsky, i formally apologise, literal friendship goals, mild violence, motorcycles goddamnit, otabek is bae, ouch i have chest pains, squad outings to the hospital brb weeping, trigger warning to be chapter specific to prevent tag spoilers, viktor gets a gold star for trying, viktor is an embarrassing boyfriend, yuri and yuuri bonding aka my heart is alive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:39:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 60,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8646916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dolphins/pseuds/dolphins
Summary: Yuuri overhears messy sobbing in the bathroom and takes it upon himself to make everything better. Viktor is an idiot, and Yuri Plisetsky rapidly spirals.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lyrics at the beginning are from the funeral from band of horses.
> 
> oh man, guys- i'm sorry i have done it again! i am so buzzing about writing this fic. i have had it stewing for a few days so i'm glad to start pumping it out.
> 
> i am loving this anime to bits (ep7 guys omfg) and the characters are so fascinating and fun to write about. especially my sweet little, angry yuri.
> 
> this is a multi-chapter work so i would love to have a little slice of your opinions! x

prologue:

i'm coming up only to hold you under  
i'm coming up only to show you wrong  
and to know you, is hard we wonder  
to know you, all wrong we were.

~

Katsuki Yuuri isn't particularly a big believer in fate. He doesn't think all of the events in his life are webbed together by a string of date, nor are they entangled greatly with the future. However, sometimes he reconsiders this notion when he's slapped in the face with a bit of a mind-ruffle.

Viktor, and the rather ridiculous events surrounding, are certainly one good example of this. But that wasn't what was quite on Yuuri's mind when he makes a quick dash to the bathroom.

A day of hard training with Yakov had his hydrated bladder aching. Apparently success doesn't take bathroom breaks, and Yuuri's always been a bit of a nervous sort. So when his five minutes of heaven are interrupted by- by an angry explosion of sobs, he feels rather inconvienced.

A quick checklist pops up in his brain, he finishes off nervously as he scrolls through his mental list. Who on Earth could emptying their eyeballs in such a muffled, heart-wrenching manner?

The only fellow skaters he can think of certainly aren't in Moscow. He knows he's stalling making some sort of decision as he triple soaps up his jittery hands.

Guilt gets the better of him and he raps the cubicle door with his knuckles. Smothered sniffles sound like they are being held hostage in some kind of fabric. "Excuse me?"

A wet hiccup echoes. "Are you okay?"

God, the guy sounds like he's really holding it all in. Part of Yuuri worries he will actually, physically implode if he keeps this up.

There's no answer and sweat beads on his extremities, partying on his neck and slip-sliding down his back. "I-I don't mean to bother you, I just hope you're okay."

A little sob comes out and Yuuri fights his instinct to climb under the door and just cuddle this poor spud. "My name is Katsuki Yuuri. I'm skating here," he offers up, fidgeting incredibly nervously by the door.

"Are you a skater?" he hopes, prays, for some little response so he feels a little less like a stalker and a loony-bin. "Y-You aren't hurt are you? I can go get a medic!"

"-No!" a congested, unrecognisable voice practically screams at him.

"Whatever is bothering you, it might be easier to talk about it," he suggests timidly, rubbing at his neck as he recovers from the shock of such a biting tone. "I-I'm a good listener, I promise I won't judge."

Mini, shuddering breaths sound in time with the dripping taps. An awkward duet that is broken by Yakov's shouts from outside. Now that makes him jump, eyes flitting back and forth guilty between the sad stall and his impending murder.

Sighing in defeat, he rummages in his pocket and pulls out a tiny little dog figurine. He has tons and tons. The twins are always giving them to him for "good luck" and he carries them in his costume out of sheer obligation.

"Here, I hope you feel better soon," Yuuri slides it under the door, feeling ever so silly giving a toy to a potentially fully grown man. One that could happily kick the shit out of him for intruding. "I'm sure everything will be okay."

Another stomach-churning scream of his name has him bolting out, missing the little hand that swipes up the toy. Before rapidly erupting into stifled whimpers.

 

Yakov runs a complete sweat shop and he's half dead when he collapses into his chair. God, he's damn lonely at lunch without Viktor and he opens FaceTime. His food smells fantastic, maybe not as nice as his mum's bento would have been, but he's not being a homesick whiner... promise.

Viktor is clearly too busy nursing his sick dog to pay attention to his lonely, hungry boyfriend, so he goes on Instagram as he stuffs his face.

A loud bang sounds from across the small canteen and he looks up to see a whirlwind of blonde hair. Yuri, that Russian lad with what seems like a stuck-on frown, stares down at the hurricane he has caused. There is a chair on its side and a splatter of what might have been food, spread across the floor.

Yuuri mightn't be best buddies with him, but he has vast enough experiences with people withholding explosive personalities to not let it drag him down. Deciding he has already failed once at playing the Good Samaritan today, he hops to his feet and jogs over to offer assistance.

Yuri looks up at him in sheer shock, quickly melting away into a mould of disgust and- and what seems like offense. Has Yuuri somehow smothered his cat or killed off his entire bloodline by mistake? As that's what it looks like when the kid all but glares up at him.

"I don't need your help!" he says bitingly, snatching away his tray with little, pinching, crap-like movements. Viktor has taught him a little Russian, mostly in the early hours when they are entangled like a bowl of spaghetti-limbs. However, being the twelve year-old he is, it was mostly the curse words.

Yuuri picks up a hell of those particular phrases in his little verbal explosion. His eyebrows raise in shock, and a perhaps a little amusement. "I'm sure Yakov doesn't appreciate that kind of language," he says it with a smile so Yuri knows he's joking.

Only scowls greet him as he kneels down and scoops mush back onto the tray, Yuri looking like he wants to protest in sheer disgust but Yuuri comes back with a couple of napkins and he stays reasonably quiet.

"Come and sit with me," he offers kindly, raising a little white flag of piece. No harm here. He doesn't bite. "Viktor isn't answering so I have nobody to talk to."

It isn't really something Yuri particularly cares about, the relationship sickening the life out of him with how soppy it is. However, while he doesn't want to do the man any favours, sitting with him might give him, ahem- tactical strategies.

"You can have some of my tea," he prods, grinning at Yuri. "I'll go up and replace your food, my table is over there," he waves an the occupied seat and Yuri huffs all the way over.

Progress, this is progress. Yuuri is all chuffed the whole way back to his table. So far there has been no drop-kicks through any doors, but the day is still young. He does, however, hopes he can befriend Yuri one day. The kid looks like he could do with a good friend and competitions, touring, press conferences, they get lonely when he knows not a soul.

Yuri starts when he plants the meal down with a little bow of the head. Again, the sudden look of vulnerable surprise dissolves into muted rage. "Dig in," Yuuri smiles.

As they eat, eyes pointed down to the glowing screens of their devices, Yuuri risks a glance at the teenager. To his own shock, it seems like his green eyes are tinged pink, strain evident under them.

His mouth falls into a little 'o' shape, thoughts spluttering into his brain on top of each other like beans from a can. No. Was it possible... "Your phone!" Yuri snaps, pulling him from his daze.

"Oh!" Yuuri jumps, scrambling to slide the little green phone across his screen.

"Hello, my love!" Viktor sings into the speaker, his face far too close to the camera and beaming like the goddamn sun. "I'm sorry I missed your call, hope everything is going okay."

"I'm fine," Yuuri blushes as he feels quite embarrassed with Yuri rolling his eyes, a metre in front of him. "How are you?"

Viktor leers into the screen with a positively irresistable grin. Man, his hair frames his face like a crown of heaven. "Incredibly, horrendously depressed without you, love. My bed was so cold, so empty without you in it this morning."

Russian Yuri chokes on his food and what sounds like Minako shouts, "Stop being so disgusting!" in the background. Yuuri smothers his red face in his hand, mumbling, "Viktor."

"I hope your eyes haven't been swayed by yet another Russian beauty. I know how goregous us Russians are," he's teasing and Yuuri snickers despite himself, looking up to grin sheepishly at a traumatised Yuri.

"Even I wouldn't blame you if your eyes fell prey to another, I'm all to aware of how sexy Yakov is when he gets all hot and sweaty during warm-ups," God, this man is scandalous, Yuuri thinks as he holds his giggles in with a fist. His teenage buddy however, stuffs the last of his food into his mouth with the screech of his chair.

"I can't deal with you idiots," he growls, stealing the rest of Yuuri's water with a thirsty slug and storming off through the nearest exit.

"Was that Yurio?" Viktor calls, voice tinny from the speaker. "Call him over! Tell him I say hello! Yuri! Yurio!"

Yuuri can see why his angry, blonde skating rival has made a quick dash for the door. But Yuuri loves his horribly embarrassing boyfriend all the same.

 

He sleeps restless, cold and grumpy under empty sheets. They are soft on his bare legs but his toes keep pathetically seeking out cozy calves to hide between. It's pitiful, but as he listens to the light pattering of snow against tall windows, he thinks of how he's lying in Viktor's home country.

Feeling a little less lost, he sinks into the pillows as he dozes off.

Dawn comes and Yuuri feels both awakened and half-dead as he stumbles over to gaze at the sunrise. Cold air sinks its teeth into his vulnerable, almost naked form, and he slips his glasses on as he takes a risky dash onto the balcony.

Stripes of gentle orange slice across the snowy horizon, knives leaving trails of hot red and wispy cotton-candy clouds. Coffee, breakfast, Yakov and skating call his name.

Despite how soppily in-love and humiliatingly seperated he feels, he hasn't come to Moscow to stare romantically at the sunrise while thinking of that idiot Viktor. Probably drooling all over his pillow right now.

After washing and dressing, he grabs his bag, phone, room key and wallet and heads out to face reality.

 

Thankfully, he's rather early and it appears he is on his own as he straps himself into his battle gear. Stretching his arms above his head, he strolls over to the edge of the rink and spots a solo figure on the ice.

A scratch of blades against the ice cause a shower of shavings to rain in his wake. Yuri looks like a little, wound-up ballet dancer in the middle of the rink. One of those ones that pop up out of a jewelry box, but when he leaps, he hisses in pain and balances himself with a reflective hand.

"Yuri!" he shouts over, gliding over. The teenager looks like he has recovered from a mild heart attack, coming back to life as a wicked demon. "You okay?"

"Fine," he growls curtly through clenched teeth. A muscle in his jaw twitches with the strain of contraction. "You looked great out there, but you are putting too much pressure on your left. It will damage your ankles."

"I don't need a screw-up like you telling me how to land," Yuri is defensive, getting all up in his face like he's squaring up for a fight. It goes over the top of Yuuri's head. He won't acknowledge the challenged bait of this little punk.

"Look," he kneels by Yuri and takes his calve in one hand, knee in the other. "It helps me if I picture this position as I land," he bends the teenager's lithe leg gently. "Balance your weight more equally using your hips."

Yuuri doesn't know if he looks more embarrassed or if the flush in his face is a result of impending rage. Most likely the latter. "Get off!" he spits, "I can do it myself."

"I know you can," Yuuri says softly. It's like dealing with one of the triplets sometimes. But Yuuri doesn't scare him, there's something about his anger that reminds him more of his puppy. Protectively baring his teeth and growling as the vet lingers, shot in hand.

"Just trying to lend a hand, skater-to-skater," he grins nervously, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck and skating away from reaching distance of Yuri.

"Well you can lend a hand," he starts mockily. "By pissing off and leaving me the fuck alone."

Ouch. Yuuri looks surprised and a hearty, old-man laugh cuts through the tense atmosphere. He looks up to see Yakov laughing, probably loving life right now.

Perhaps this is the plan, mentally wear Yuuri down until he's had enough, deciding the even the Grand Prix isn't worth putting up with these two idiots for even a second longer.

 

At lunch, he has never been so happy to see food in all his life. Yakov tortured him for the dispute, pushing him to his limits this morning and he could eat a small horse. Popping open his FaceTime, mouth full, he summons Viktor.

"Hello, love," he rubs his eyes, naked from the waist up and, Yuuri clutches his chest in offended shock, -is still in bed at this ridiculous time of the day. "Just catching a couple winks of beauty sleep," he grins sleepily, eyelids low and sexual.

"No wonder you're so pretty," he quips, meaning it as a dig but Viktor coos, fully welcoming it as a compliment to make Yuuri flush.

"When are you coming out?" he asks, mouth full and trying not to sound clingy, or pining, or lovesick. You know, all the things that he so isn't. "Hopefully in a couple of days, love. Makkachin is having some more tests this evening to check if the surgery has been successful."

He swallows his mouthful. "Everything's going okay, isn't it?" Viktor asks concerned, noting the little touch of soberity that spreads across Yuuri's features.

"Yeah," Yuuri nods. "I just think I am being bullied by Yuri and your coach."

Viktor laughs, warm and dripping all syrupy sweet through the speakers. "Is that so?" he is teasing. "Do you want me to come and hold your hand, or tell them off?"

Yuuri snorts, tea going up his nose. "You are an idiot," he retorts. Viktor keeps laughing but when he stops, he looks a bit more serious despite the smirk. "It's not actually bothering you, is it? I can have a word if it'll help."

"No, no," Yuuri assures him, heart going pathetically soft and mushy, warm like mashed potatoes. He appreciates the offer. "I'm just joking. Actually I'm a little worried about Yuri." he glances around to make sure the boy isn't lurking behind him with a machete.

Interest piqued, Viktor's eyebrows twitch. "Hm, how so?" Yuuri fumbles with his hands, gesturing to clutch at the missing words he can't locate. "I- I don't, there's just something. I don't know."

Viktor stares in thought for a second, before shrugging flippantly. "Teenagers are all a bit weird. Aren't they all moody and unpredictable. It's part and parcel with the joys of hormones."

Yuuri shakes his head, shoving his mouth full of delicious food. Their lunch breaks are much too short. "From what I heard from your mother you were certainly a strange little one yourself."

Oh no. Oh no. His heart gallops and thud, thud, thuds nervously against his chest. "What has mum said?" Every embarrassing moment of his youth comes to the forefront of his mind. A humiliating flip-book of memories that make his whole body cringe.

"Oh nothing," he smiles, all teeth as he basks all smugly in Yuuri's bed. Yuuri yelps indignantly. "Viktor," he warns and his boyfriend laughs loudly.

"I love your little collection of posters of me," he looks positively glowing, mocking and affectionate- his eyes twinkly with mischief. He knew it. He fucking knew it.

One less birthday present, he supposes, deciding the only option is to disown his mother. He sinks his face into mortified hands.

"It's cute, really," Viktor coos, giggling low in his throat. "You are quite adorable Yuuri, I've never had a boy make a shrine in my name before."

There's only so much face planting he can do before he tears a ligament. "Goodbye Viktor," he drones, finger hovering over the hang-up button.

"Don't go, I want to talk more about the younger days of Katsuki Yuuri!" his laughing voice is cut off.

Yuuri is left to finish his food in peace, slurping away as he tries to remove the red on his face by sheer willpower. Rapidly, he comes to the conclusion that he needs a less embarrassing boyfriend, and Russian people are mean.

 

Yakov and Yuri are engaged in what looks like a 'serious conversation' when he returns. Yuuri is left to his own devices to practice, sliding in between other skaters perfecting their techniques. He almost kills a couple, eyes fixated nosily on the pair, apolgising rapidly, he slopes off.

Blonde hair hangs miserably around Yuri's face and he's nodding like he is being reprimanded.

It's none of his business. It's none of his business. He repreats this mantra, even in midair as his eyes gape. Figuring it's only a matter of time before he breaks his neck, loses a limb, or Yakov glances up and does the job for him; he pushes it out of his head for now.

 

Knock, knock. It returns soon after when he crashes into Yuri coming out of the changing room, spilling the contents of his bag onto the corridor.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry!" he sinks to his knees and scrambles to collect Yuri's items back up into his bag before the lad explodes. "No, stop- I can do it myself!" he growls, trying to shove Yuuri away from the apparently top-secret earphones, hoody, underwear, and... oh.

A tiny dog figurine, about two centimetres tall pokes out from the little cave of his clothes. "Y-Yuri," he stutters, mouth open dopily like a dumb fish. Slowly, it's sinking in what this means.

"Go away!" he gives Yuuri a proper shove, teeth pressed tight together. His face, to Yuuri's shock, is getting increasingly more crimson. "Just fuck off already!"

Yuuri stands, raising his hands slowly as a sign of peace. He lowers his tone to one suitable for spooked deers. "Yuri, I-"

He doesn't get a chance for finish as in a whirlwind movement, almost reminiscent of his skating, Yuri swoops up his stuff into his bag. Before shoving the older, Japanese man against the wall with a predatory hand around the collar of his training jacket.

"Say one more fucking word," his voice cracks, tone tight and like a rubber band pulled too taut, snaps, "-one more, and I swear you won't get to the Grand Prix."

Yuuri wants to tug his hands away, his chest feels constricted with the need to understand this kid and his insane reactions. "Because I'll break every damn bone in your fucking legs."

He leaves with one last shove, spitting Russian curses into his face. Yuuri catches his breathe back as he watches the all-ecompassing ball of rage that is Yuri Plisetsky vacate the premises. Leaving smoking trails and burning, crumbling ambers in his wake.

Yuuri wonders if it's too late to take up Viktor's offer of giving these guys a good telling off.

And maybe... holding his hand a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yuuri you saint-like creature.
> 
> thank you very much for taking the time to read! i appreciate it incredibly so! i would certainly love to hear any and all opinions you might be so kind to share! x


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys and sweet little yuri plisetsky are giving me life right now!!
> 
> this fandom is the best!!!!

Funnily enough, he doesn't come into contact with Yuri Plisetsky very often after that encounter. It's only been a few days, mind you. But he is starting to think the Russian believes he has some kind of fatal plague- the kind where even looking at Yuuri will have him asphyxiating on the spot.

However, it's not easy to avoid each other when Yakov has them dancing like two puppets on the ice. Opposite sides of the rink, of course; Yuuri has emotional leprosy and Yuri ain't catching that shit.

"Five minutes," Yakov orders and they part ways, microphones dropping dramatically. It's so silly, Yuuri feels like they've just had a rap battle, or dance-off as they leave via opposing sides.

Yuri dives head first into a changing cubicle, shoulders hasty and tense in case he has to share the same oxygen as Yuuri, God formid. Nothing on Earth could be worth lowering himself in such a demeaning way.

"Yuri, wait-" he plants a hand on the door, fed up with how utterly childish this whole situation is. "I-" force from the other side, slams the door shut. Yuuri thanks his lucky stars he still has all his digits in tact, backing away slowly.

 

Later in the day, he tries again. Yakov wants to go over techniques as he puffs on a cigarrette outside. Yuri and Yuuri having to accompany him, shivering under the slight shade by the door. Sleet is sloshing down around them, Yakov paying no attention, warm under this coat and umbrella.

Stale smoke clogs up the air, getting in his nose and making it itchy. He just wants to go back inside but he promised Viktor he would try to be respectful of his coach.

Yuri sneezes and he gives Yuuri a dirty look when he glances over. How dare Yuuri soak up his weakness through those damn corneas. "Cold?" he whispers conversationally.

Yakov is still mid-rant and the teenager pointedly ignores him, wrapping arms tight around his waist. "I think I have a good image of that landing in my bag," Yuuri says, ideas forming. "Me and Yuri will go and get them."

Why holding a sheet of paper takes two, Yakov doesn't question and accepts their retreat as he enjoys his little stick of cancerous drugs. "I don't want to see your fucking sheet." Yuri snaps, twisting open an energy drink with a fizzing hiss.

"There is no sheet," he reassures quickly. A time bomb is ticking, loudly counting down until Yuri's next meltdown. 0 days from the last accident in the workplace. "You just looked cold, relax. I'm not going to try to talk to you."

Yuri looks at him warily, resembling some kind of stray cat. Hair pricked up along his spine, teeth bared and ready to slice. He sees where the kid gets his nickname. "Okay?" Yuri says nothing, slugging down a couple of gulps of his drink.

Despite now being in the warmth, the teen still shivers under a black hoody, blue jacket and probably a t-shirt. "Want to go grab a cup of tea or coffee before Yakov comes back?"

Yuuri watches him try to cover up the trembling with a shady cough. His eyes are wide, chocolate-coloured concern. They have been beside the heater for a good five minutes, he shouldn't be shaking as much as he is.

"No," he throws his empty bottle by Yuuri's feet and stomps out, refusing to look at his elder even once.

A world-weary sigh floats out of his mouth, his tummy feeling like a swirly concoction of guilt and worry. Perhaps he needs to shake up his methods a bit.

 

"I miss you," Viktor tells him on FaceTime; it's their little routine. Yuuri can't quite face sitting alone in the canteen, so even the virtual form of Viktor is enough to quell the silence.

"I miss you too," he admits quietly in return. "You would be a lot better in this situation than me," Yuuri briefly explained the skeleton of his Grand Theory of Yuri Plisetsky.

"You're overthinking it," Viktor sighs. "Focus on yourself and your perfomance. I have known Yuri many years and I can tell you, if something was wrong you would have heard about it by now."

Things aren't quite as black and white as that, Yuuri thinks. It doesn't matter how long he has known the kid, it's pretty damn obvious considering his angry sobbing in the cubicle, that things aren't all puppies and kittens.

"I don't know how to help," he admits. "He doesn't trust me enough to even have a casual conversation, nevermind discuss his problems."

Viktor's sparkly eyes soften with endearment, "Don't pressure him, love. Unless you want a split lip, you won't get nowhere if you outright ask."

Yuuri traces his fingers across the grooves of his table, sun poking out between snowy clouds making him squint. "He might listen more to you, he- he thinks the world of you."

Viktor chortles in disbelief. An attractive squawk of a thing that makes Yuuri's skin tingle in sheer need. "What type of drugs are doing over there, love?" he snorts. "I have never heard anything so daft."

"B-but," Yuuri stutters. Has Viktor even been present for the last couple of weeks. Surely he was there when Yuri literally flew from Russia to Japan, all for the lanky idiot to coach him. The kid skated his heart out for him and when it was trampled on, he fled.

"You missunderstand," Viktor shakes his head gently. "Yuri might idolize my skating, my programmes, my performances, but I know for a fact he finds me incredibly annoying."

He doesn't sound too fussed, sprawled across the sofa like a lazy, spoilt cat. "Well, he isn't half wrong," Yuuri has the courage to tease, crinkles of mischief spill from the corners of his eyes.

Viktor mock-gasps, face growing deviant as he nudges in closer to the camera. "You have changed, Yuuri. I thought you were different but the fame- it's gone to your head!"

"Idiot," they are both laughing into their respective cameras.

Despite the fact that they have been forced apart so early on in their newly born relationship; they feel closer, more intimate than ever. From the door, Yuuri misses the set of green eyes watching the encounter pensively.

 

"Plisetsky!" Yakov is shouting in that booming, supersonic voice on his. His square jaw moves up and down, chewing over angry, Russian curses.

"I can do it!" Yuri all but screams back in response. There's something different about him and a shadow of dread creeps up the back of Yuuri's shirt. It presses cold hands into his jugular, anticipation closing around his trachea.

"Get over here now!" the old man is yelling. "You aren't fit, you're going to end up injuring yourself!"

Yuri looks like his legs are trembling, knees barely able to support his weight. His whole face burns crimson, short hair soaked through with sweat, and his face- man, the agony is so evident that Yuuri has to hold the railing to keep himself back.

A slanging match occurs in Russian, rapid fire bites in harsh tones. Yuuri swallows, observing the battlefield while lacking the fluency to understand what they are saying.

Yuri flips him off, taking off on unstable limbs and once again, attempting the unattemptable. No, Yuuri begs him silently. As he leaps into the air, sheer anger carrying him through the stratosphere. Yuuri forgets his vow of silence and yells.

"Yuri!" he watches as the teenager falls, crashing full-smack down onto the ice in almost slow motion. His cushion most of the blow. "Idiot," Yakov is cursing and Yuuri is hopping the barrier, gliding over to the splattered kid in sheer, blind panic.

"Are you okay?" he kneels, shaking the folded-up lump. "Yurio!" a weak hand grabs his wrist and attempts to squeeze. "I am fine!" he hisses, it's barely audibly through the narrow corridor between locked jaws.

Wetness on his skin makes Yuuri jump and he looks down, a bloody handprint marking his wrist. "Oh shit, shit, Yurio you're bleeding."

Attempting to shrug him away to stand, Yuri ends up wavering like a newborn deer. "Stop it," Yuuri snaps, patience wearing thin as he takes matters into his own hands. Arms, locked around the boy, he takes his weight and practically carries him to a bench.

His younger rival, for sheer pride-defence, scrambles and wriggles. He is squirming with embarrassment and Yakov has disappeared to get a first-aid kit.

"I don't need your help!" he yells, his face is hot and eyes damp. Oh God, Yuuri feels all kinds of guilt. Maybe he was a little abrasive, perhaps too rough. "Just leave me alone!"

It suddenly occurs to him that Yuri might not be referring soley to this particular incident.

Yuri isn't crying, he swears. Swiping furiously at his flushed face. It's dust, allergies, having to look at this fucking idiot for an extended period of time.

"Thanks, Yakov," Yuuri says as he takes the box, kneeling down in front of the boy. "A medic isn't needed, I don't think," he assures the coach as he checks for joint damage.

"Give me your hands," Yuuri says, softening his tone a little. Why Yuri has to make life a hundred times more difficult for himself, he doesn't know. But frustration has never solved anything before.

Yuri refuses, folding his bloody hands under opposing armpits. "Hands, now," Yuuri looks him straight in the eye, an unfamiliar sternness that comes out slightly timid still.

Shakily, the extremities are thrust in front of him with a huffy sigh and Yakov leaves to get bottles of water. "You shouldn't have overworked yourself like that."

Yuri is silent. Biting his lip, he looks away and lets his hair cover him up into a safe little cocoon. His hands are still jittering, long, slender fingers. Bloody cuts mark his palms and due to the watery ice, it probably looks worse than it is.

Little callouses mark his knuckles and the occasional finger. Scars or tissue damage, he isn't sure and he rubs at them curiously.

"What happened?" he questions softly as he dabs at the cuts with antibacterial wipes. It stings he knows, so he does what he would do to the triplets, and uses his other hand to soothingly rub at his wrist.

"Fell," he says curtly and Yuuri spots a flash of white teeth sinking into an already-reddened lip.

"Almost done," Yuuri soothes and Yuri looks like he wants the ground to swallow him up. Utterly mortified, ashamed of the mollycoddling. Alcohol catches at a particularly wide wound, he winces and Yuuri apolgises profusely.

"It might be better to keep them wrapped up for a few hours to keep out any bacteria," Yuri doesn't recognise the word for bacteria in Japanese, funnily enough it wasn't on the requirements. He repeats it in broken English, watching understanding soften his face.

"Try not to get the bandages wet," he wraps them around with a gentle touch. Yuri has given up trying to fight him, obeying passively to get away as soon as possible.

Phase One: Befriend Yuri initated. Yuuri thinks surely this must be progress. Tending to his physical wounds has bound to open some degree of trust among him and the teenager. Now it's only a matter of time until they are best buds, Yuri releasing this mysterious cloud of doom into the past.

"Here," Yakov shoves a bottle of water into his student's injured hands. "Drink, eat sleep. Go sort yourself out or I am withdrawing you from the tournament."

It's all talk, Yuuri knows. However Yuri sinks his head and nods sullenly. Gnawing on his lip once again with sharp incisors.

"He doesn't mean that," Yuuri sits down beside him, tapping his fingertips against his thighs. Yakov is far enough out of earshot to speak freely. "You're too good to be taken off- he knows that. He's just trying to scare you because you worried him."

Yuri finally looks up at him. The look in his face makes snakes strangle the elder's heart. Pure, unadultered venom. It masks up all the fear and sadness, but Yuri can only see fire.

"Go and fuck yourself," he says in a low voice, quivering with the effort taken by containing himself. "Or maybe go and get Viktor to do it for you. That's all that waste of space is good for anyway."

"Yuri!" he gasps.

"It's true!" he stomps to his feet in a fit on unshakeable energy. Ever so slightly unhinged, his voice raises like a bubbling pressure cooker. "Where is he now then, eh?" he mocks.

"Please sit and calm down, Yuri," he begs, a little worried the teenager is going to pop a blood vessel or scream out his vocal chords.

"He's pissed off as usual, it's what he always does but you're too much of a fucking idiot to see that!" he stabs an injured finger into Yuuri's chest. "Something better will come along and he will leave you too."

It's designed specifically to hurt him, Yuuri knows this. Manufactured carefully to deliver the most pain and paranoia possible. Now he is supposed to overthink and obsess until he ends up screwing up their relationship himself. So as much as the words stab at his chest with their intended purpose, he knows Yuri is just a hurting kid lashing out at an easy target.

Refusing to break, he levels his frowing eyes with two little balls of fire.

"Is that what you think he did to you?" he asks softly. "Are you angry because you think he abandoned you?"

"Like I care about that fucker," Russian curses slip in fluidly. "I can't stand the cocky, arrogant asshole. The only reason I came was to get him to give me what he promised."

Yuri pushes away from the older man. "But that was before he turned into a boring, talentless loser," he spits out and shoves his sore hands protectively into his pockets.

Plisetsky out. Yuuri is left standing alone in the empty rink. Words ringing like bells in his head, pounding against his skull and giving him a right headache.

So much for making progress.

 

His cold hotel room welcomes him back with open arms. It's been a long day. A chill has penetrated right through to his bones, little shivery drills that poke holes that go right through.

For a moment, he considers calling Viktor.

He thirsts for the comfort and security he brings, even if it is all blanketed with jokes. But the exhaustion hits, and he doesn't want to bother Viktor if he is busy.

Trying to scrub away the look on Yuri's face, he stands under the spray letting his whole body relax. Tomorrow is another day and he can't get himself so worked up when he is supposed to be competing.

When unconsciousness hits, he dreams of a broken teenager; Yakov selling pineapples on the black market, and Viktor leaving him all alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ouch.....
> 
> hope you enjoyed it!! thanks incredibly much for taking the time to read. i would love to pinch a slice of any opinion/thoughts you have!! :)x


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow!!!!!!!! *-*
> 
> this fandom is....THE BEST!!  
> you guys are passionate and exciting and man, you are some talented writers people. keep up your awesomeness pls.
> 
> but here is chapter three!!! i hope you are sticking with me for the ride! i am having the most fun writing (and losing bucketloads if sleep) lol! :)x

Incredibly enough, Operation Yuri takes a complete U-turn straight into shocked, heart attack-ville. A kind of surprise that has Yuuri's head spinning in complete shock.

Okay, so he is sitting on the bench in the changing room, sweat and deodorant curling in contrast up his nostrils- when a pig bursts into the room, no wait, flies into the room. Or scrap that, goblins emerge from between the tile cracks and gobble up his feet. Rainbows spills out of his duffel bag, Viktor Nikiforov collapsing down on one knee with a wedding ring.

But truthfully, what happens is even more shocking. A wary, stray cat prowls towards him defensively with its teeth on show for protection. Silently, Yuri plants a takeout cup of hot liquid beside him on the bench before sighing angrily and legging it out.

Trying to locate his literal thoughts, Yuuri flounders. Is this poison? Should he risk it?

A wary sip tells him it's only tea. Safe enough. He catches tiny pen marks, scratched into the cardboard cup. It reads, "Sorry," a tiny scrawl; all sharp capital letters that look embarrassed for even being there. Like it took the writer all his willpower to even summon them.

He stares at it like a dumbass until drool collects stupidly in his mouth. Picking the cup up and happily slurping at his apology drink, he decides he will keep this cup when he's finished. Tucking it into his duffel bag with a heart that feels fluffier than Makkachin.

"You'll never guess what," Yuuri splutters excitedly into the phone, sitting on the toliet for privacy. "Hello to you too, Yuuri. How was your day?" Viktor remarks sarcastically but he breezes over this in his haste.

"Yuri has given me an apology cup!"

"A what?"

Yuuri is grinning far too much about such a tiny gesture, "-this is a big deal, you know? I actually think I might be getting somewhere with him."

"Hang on, back up a little, love," Viktor laughs into the speaker shoved against his ear. "Yuri did what?"

Little flutters of pride collect in Yuuri's chest. "He bought me a takeout cup of tea from the canteen and wrote sorry on it. He must have felt a little bad about our argument the other day."

"Only you would get so happy about something so little," Viktor sighs longingly into the phone. He sounds so mushy and enamored that Yuuri pines a bit.

"It's not little where Yuri is concerned. This is enormous," he breathes, shaking his head in awe at the observing ceiling-tiles. "You know what else is enormous?" Viktor purrs lowly, voice smirking and Yuuri feels a sudden rupture of red ooze from his vessels to his soft cheeks.

"Certainly not what you're referring to," he quips, snuffling taunting taughter into his jacket sleeve. Viktor splutters, seemingly offended by such a ridiculous assumption.

"Not that you would know!" he protests accusingly and Yuuri covers his face fully, phone in between his ear and shoulder. "I am not having this conversation now! I was just kidding!"

"It was really cold," Viktor ignores him, voice high in defence. "You had just got out of a hot spring," Yuuri points out, entirely objectively and he can't hold back the laughter as it sets Viktor into a furious tirade.

"Okay, okay, shut up!" Yuuri is hot as hell and Viktor is on a rant about his bodily proportions when he only has five more minutes left for his break. "I'll prove it to you." he mutters.

"How is Makkachin doing?" Yuuri asks, ignoring his previous sentence as he bites at his thumb nail. "Sleepy and sore from the surgery," Viktor tells him sadly. "I miss you so much but I can't leave him for a couple of days. He can't lift his head long enough to eat so I'm bottle-feeding him a solution of nutrients and fibre."

The actual thought of Viktor sitting up at night to bottle feed his dog has his heart shriveling up to smithereens. Cuddling a pained Makkachin in between Yuuri's sheets as he recovers. God, Yuuri doesn't even mind that Viktor is halfway across the world because if he has to choose between him and the dog; Yuuri wants him to pick Makkachin every goddamn time.

For sheer cuteness factors alone.

"You're very sweet," he admits, wanting nothing more than to flail into pillow at how fucking adorable his boyfriend can be at times. He coughs and plays it cool.

"I know, my love, I know," Viktor is also incredibly cocky, so that helps level out Yuuri's flailing and lets him taper it down with amusement. "I have to go here, Viktor. I miss you too."

"Go and skate your heart out, okay? Try not to lose focus thinking about my incredibly well proportioned lower-regions."

Viktor hangs up before he can choke on his own saliva.

 

"Good land on those last couple of quads," Yakov tells him over the barrier. Over the course of time, the angry Russian man has begun to tolerate his existence, and perhaps even as a recent squad addition.

Even going so far as to give him praise, and constructive criticism in a way that demonstrates his long term experience as a coach. He has the experience that Viktor does not, the level of knowledge and objectivity that suddenly makes it obvious how much Viktor flounders at times. When Yakov watches his routines, he can feel the man actually viewing his skating; rather than his boyfriend's eye-sex.

Not that he's complaining either way.

A fellow predator has been watching him inconspicuously and come lunch time, Yuuri flips the table and pounces. "Hey, Yuri!" he shouts over as they both catch their breath.

"Hm," he mumbles non-commitally as they make their way to the changing room. "I just wanted to say thanks for the tea, and- and I forgive anything you said the other day."

Yuuri wears his heart on his sleeve. It's so obvious and pumping, alive and dripping blood down the webs of his fingers. Yuri looks away, it makes his whole body string up all tight with discomfort. Man, he wouldn't mind exiting quite kindly out of life right now.

"Shut up. Forget about it," he says quietly, in an effort not to- well, outright snap. His eyes dart back and forth; even his mop of ice-gold hair isn't enough to shield the disgusting pink tinge of his face.

"Okay, okay," he laughs, not wanting to annoy the kid further while the olive branches are lurking about. "Come on, did you bring something to eat? We'll go to the canteen."

"I'm okay," he is trying desperately to shrug this Japanese stalker off, to no avail. "You need to get something down you or you won't last the rest of practice. It's on me, come on and I'll show you this funny thug-life compliation Phichit sent me from YouTube."

Yuri looks like he wants to do anything else, bar sitting down with this Japanese twat to eat and spend 8.42 minutes watching bullshit. But he concedes, this must be repentance for his sins. When his penance is completed, he can shrug off Yuuri for good and get on with his life.

"Fine," he sits stiffly on the edge of his chair. Limbs are like concrete and Yuuri examines his hands from the chair opposite. "That's healing pretty well."

He doesn't answer; he hasn't screamed or insulted Yuuri yet, so that is good enough in his opinion. "What do you like?" Yuuri beams, he is trying so hard to be so- so fucking kind. It's making Yuri nauseous.

"Whatever," he shrugs, glaring at the seemingly offensive table as he gnaws on his lip. "I'll pick then, here-" he shoves over his phone; a buffering video on display.

"Wifi is pretty slow in here so be patient."

If Yuuri enjoys the video, it's probably unbelievably shit. So boring, just like the man himself. He isn't going to enjoy this at all. No way in hell he could stomach this garbage.

Tray in hand, Yuuri nearly drops it as a splutter of laughter bursts out of the young skater at the other side of the room. He looks as surprised at the laugh as Yuuri feels, trying to cover it up cooly with a hand rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

Green eyes pointedly avoid Yuuri when he comes over, looking far too soppy to be considered legal. Ignore the flush on his face, ignore the muffled laughter bursting up in his throat; Yuri looks up finally in defiance.

"You like it?" Yuuri plants down the tray between them, he is trying desperately not to make everything such a big deal. But Yuri is so explosive, it's pleasant to see him mellowed down to a flickering flame.

"It's okay," he shrugs taking his food and shovelling it in. "Bit stupid though."

Yuuri rolls his eyes.

 

Man, popular today, Yuuri thinks when his phone rings for the second time. He's elbow deep in clothes, shoving them into his bag. "Hello?" he says formally, barely glancing at the collar ID.

"Hello, sweetie," he grins at the sound of his mother's voice. "How are you? What are you up to? I hope you're looking after yourself well enough."

"I am, mum," he assures, droning a little because, man- he is almost twenty-four and if Viktor is listening in on his mother's conversation, he will have the piss taken out of him until he's forty-four.

"You better not be freaking out with the stress of these competitions," she says softly, amicable, kind and non-lecturing. She is an ideal parent, Yuuri can only hope to be half as good of parent as she is. "Viktor-chan has been very worried about you."

She gossips and Yuuri's ears prick up at the last bit. Has he heard correctly?

"What?" he bursts out, half-disbelief, one-hundred percent laughter. "Oh yes," she indulges. "He thinks you might be taking on too much and burdening yourself with stress. Maybe making yourself ill with worry like you did in China."

Soberity hits him hard like rocks to the back of his head. "I told him we have to trust you well enough to learn from your mistakes, like you always have. My son is much stronger than that."

A lump settles low in his throat and he can't quite shake it. "He could just be worried you have too many beauties running after you, now you're so successful. It's understandable you are going to have lots of admirers after you- you take after your mother's side after all."

"Mum!" he groans in mortification, but the comments about Viktor still reside prominently in the forefront of his mind.

Alright, maybe he takes back his thoughts from earlier. Victor is mostly just... an utter cutie.

 

It's late, raining and Yuuri is fiddling with his car keys. He has rented a car for his short duration in Russia, money isn't too tight in his pockets. Plus he doesn't fancy the idea of having to walk everywhere and he revels in the freedom the little car beings.

She rumbles and splutters to life, engine wheezing and wipers screeching against the splottering drops. They are illuminated by the city lights like tiny moons and his fatigued muscles sink into the chair.

A blurry figure walks from the building, hunched shoulders and hood up to paperly shield the rain. He should have known straight away but when he rolls up, he spots Yuri.

"Yurio!" he shouts over the sound of the decaying vehicle. "What?" the teenager mouths, hair plastered and he's looking pissed off by the borderline stalking already.

"Get in!" he slows to match the pace of the stomping teen. A queue of traffic is behind him and he can't hang about for long. "You are going to freeze to death."

"Fuck off!" he flashes the fingers to the twenty-something year old man who currently looks like he's cruising in the rain for teenagers. "I mean it!" he snaps impatiently, the rain getting through his open window and drenching his lap.

Beep. Beep. "Alright!" Yuuri snarls at his wing mirror to the impatient little shit behind him. "Yurio, hurry up."

Yuri erupts into a flurry of furious Russian, a vicious tirade that continues well until he's buckling his seatbelt and dripping all over Yuuri's rented car. Takeout boxes and a dusty hoody look up from the floor in protest.

"You can't be out walking in that weather," he says when they are further from the angry mob of impatient drivers/road raged psychopaths. "Yakov would have your head on a stick and he would have mine on an even bigger one."

Yuri folds his arms, silent and shaking in secret adrenaline. Perhaps he's going for that whole 'if you don't have anything nice to say- don't speak at all' thing. Or maybe his budget doesn't stretch to the amount of apology beverages he would have to fork out if he did open his trap.

"Wanna go grab something to eat?" Yuuri flicks on his indicators while throwing the rigid teen a glance.

"No," he says, clenched teeth obstructed any attempt at clear speech. "Drop me off here, I can walk the rest."

"Are you going straight home? Is it far?" Yuuri doesn't twig on to the increasing eruption settling comfortably in the seat beside him. However, thankfully he has his entire focus on the road so the Russian traffic can breathe easy.

"I can drive you there if you're wrecked, just give me the directions," he says, fidling with the radio idly with his left hand as he stalls at an intersection.

"No you aren't," he breathes out impatiently. God, what is it with this absolute weirdo. His constant questions, and talking, and all his fucking bizarre obsessing over every little thing he does. Yuri wants to tear his blonde locks out in clumps and then shove it down his elder's throat. Maybe that would shut him up.

"I'm not letting you get the flu out in that weather. Besides, it's not safe and you're bound to be exhausted after practicing all day," he tries to sound 'stern' but as he quickly learns to accept, Katsuki Yuuri doesn't do stern particularly well.

Blonde hair swooshes outline what looks to be a defiant shake of the head.

"Either you let me drive you home or I am phoning Yakov to come and pick you up. It's your choice."

That old bag wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire, Yuri huffs. He isn't going to waste any more time on the punk than he already does, especially if it doesn't involve his skating performances.

"What about your grandad? He might be cross if you turn up soaked and freezing," he was trying a different route, however when he quickly hit full-suck into a brick wall- he regrets it.

Manic anger flashes in Yuri's eyes. "Shut the fuck up right now," low, dangerous tones are a far cry from his usual irate screeching.

It makes chills wriggle up every vertebrae on Yuuri's spine, poking right through the soft flesh and muscle and straight to the bone. Oh no, oh no. The shark's in the water and he smells blood. Swim away, Yuuri- swim away!

"Speak another word and you'll be swallowing every one of those teeth," he clenches a hand tight around Yuuri's wrist, resting seemingly innocently on the gearstick.

"Okay."

Silence is even worse than the arguments... and they were doing so well too.

Seconds roll by and Yuuri realises he is practically driving aimlessly round a congested Moscow. People will start to think he really is cruising for the local talent, perhaps not satisfied by the guy he has already kidnapped.

Sweat has broken out over Yuri's forehead and he just looks... tired. Mentally drained from it all. "Sorry," he chokes out like it pains him.

Yuuri is too sensitive and soft. He's like a big puppy and Yuri is finding his satisfaction at giving him a kick, waning terribly. Leaving this gloopy, sticky sludge in his guts. What it is, he doesn't know- nor particularly care about. However, it helps to expel it from time to time.

"It's okay," the Japanese man gives him a strained smile. Fuck, he tries so, so hard in everything he does. Nothing gets done half-assed, and he almost feels envy at how much the man's trying.

"Turn left here," he succumbs and folds his arms across his tummy, wet clothes beginning to itch against his skin. Yuuri is kind, alright even he can admit that. But he's insecure and weak- mentally there's only so much he can take before he crumbles.

Eventually, he will reach a melting point when he can no longer deal with Yuri's shit. It is inevitable and expected. Yuri can't quite hold back his excitement and anticpation, finally he will have shaken off this monkey from his back.

"Am I going the right way?" Yuuri squints, frowing at the busy area up ahead.

Long buildings snuggle with the clouds, glossy streets illuminating the headlights of each passing vehicle. He frowns at the excessive activity in the area.

Signs point the way: supermarkets, a hospital, even an airport. For some reason, he assumed Yuri lived a little more out in the sticks than this. But he supposes not everyone can live in the middle of nowhere like himself.

"Down here?" Yuri pulls his hood down further. "Just pull up here. I live in one of those apartment blocks, it's a nightmare getting turned up there- it's a one way street," he forces out, half-civil.

"If you're sure," Yuuri watches him carefully, there's something iffy about him- but when is there not, to be honest. He supposes it's better than the kid having walked the whole way from the rink.

"Be careful crossing, Yurio," he smiles, trying to look kind and warm, and approachable, 'if there's anything you need to talk about' lies heavy in every cell in his body. "See you tomorrow."

Yuri slams the car door with a quiet, begrudged, "Thank you," before jogging across the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one step forward- two steps back. isn't that always the way of it?
> 
> but wow...thanks for reading you awesome peeps!!!! i am feeling so happy and motivated by the lovely reception i have gotten in this fandom. i would love to her any thoughts/opinions/critiques whatever from you!!!! :)x


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back at it again with the writing......*shrieks*
> 
> man, these characters are addicting and i am seriously OVERWHELMED by how awesome you guys are???
> 
> seriously am buzzing for the new episode tomorrow...(eek!!)

Yuuri isn't having a particularly great morning. Fate conspires against him and somehow, his excess limb- that damn phone, has gone missing. To top it off, he has lost his glasses so he can't actually see to find either of them.

It wouldn't be so much of a problem but today isn't a rest day. It's two days until the short programme and he needs every single second of practice he can get.

On his hands and knees, he is groping the floor with desperate fingers. Okay, they aren't under the bed. However, he does come into contact with an ominous substance so while wanting to set himself on fire, he decides perhaps it's better he remains blissfully oblivious.

Drawers, nope. Bed, nope. It's becoming ever more likely he is going to have to spend the remainder of his days in this short-sighted hell.

Knock, knock, knock. Oh shit. His heart contracts to slosh thick blood against his ventricles, uneven and disgusting and he feels his tummy flutter. "I'm coming!" he yells suddenly, scrambling to his feet and feeling for the door.

Skimming the handle at last, it seems his efforts were in vain as the hotel room door swings open. Kindly smacking him right in the nose. "Oh my god, I am so sorry, sir!" a blurry, alien-like blob shrieks, holding his arm and giving him a shake.

"Are you okay?" she sounds terribly guiltly so Yuuri laughs and pretends he isn't wondering if any bones are broken. "I'm fine I'm fine! How can I help you?"

She deflates in overwhelming relief. "There is a call for you in reception from a Mr Nikiforov," he can tell she notices his new blindness. Offering him an arm, which he hesitantly takes. He feels a little bit like a posh lady as he links arms with her. Hair standing upright, pjs crumpled and probably sporting an impressive bruise in the centre of his face.

Perhaps it's better to fantasize- he is an elegant lady, in an elegant gown, swooshing down the corridor while- whoops, Yuuri's musings are cut short as trips up on the edge of the carpet.

Even his daydreams fall short.

"Hello," he says following the awkward hassle with an ancient reciever. Who even uses phones with cords nowadays?

"Yuuri, love, thank god!" Viktor gushes into the phone. "Viktor, w-what's happened? Are you okay? Is Makkachin okay?" his skin takes on a whole army of goosebumps, not even coming from the embarrassment of standing blindly in a busy lobby... in his pjs.

"Of course, of course, we are both fine! It's you I was worried about," his voice is so full of relief and life, it's hard not to just get entirely caught up in every word he says.

"Huh?"

"You haven't logged into Facebook for several hours, Yuuri!" he scolds. "I scrolled and scrolled and not one cat meme did I see! So I tried calling you and you didn't answer- that's how I knew you simply must be dead."

Adding to his bruise, Yuuri slaps his hands right into his face. A good old face-palm for a good old idiot. Man, if this doesn't make him reassess his life as a social media addict, he doesn't know what will.

"I'm alive," he mutters, spiders crawling across every inch of his mortified skin. "I've lost my glasses, and my phone too."

Listening with wide-eyed curiousity- well, not that Yuuri can tell, is the young hotel receptionist. Her ears prick up at the thought of doing her daily deed of kindness and she hops to attention. "I can find them, sir. I used to be great at catching our goats when they went run-abouts."

He didn't actually ask for her whole life story, you know. Glasses and phone, it was all he wanted. But a life story was what he got and he resisted the urge to impatiently tell her he was late for something, to speed it along. But his mother hasn't raised him to be such a little brat, so he feels terrible for even thinking it.

"Thank you so much!" he beams when she finds the hidden gems, in between the bed and the drawers. He could have swore he looked there. So when he slips them on, he gives her pretty face a proper beam.

Now equipped with sight and more importantly, his little box of technology- he scrambles into his car. Late, late, late. He is panicking the whole way there, internally screaming at every red light. Sunlight streams through his windscreen, making his already-fatigued eyes ache with discomfort. Apparently his win at China depleted his luck stores. His tummy rumbles.

Thankfully, Yuuri had predicted something like this happening, and has his glove box chocked to the brim with goodies. Tearing open a strange-looking Russian cake, he devours it with jittery teeth. Not exactly his ideal, protein-rich and nutritious breakfast but beggers can't be choosers.

 

Yakov doesn't murder him as much as he expects. Bloodshed is kept to a minimal, it's pretty sudden and instant. The clean up squad are in luck today; better than last week, Yuuri supposes.

"Get sorted Katsuki, or Yuri will kick your ass all the way back to Japan in the programme."

Yes sir, sorry sir. Bowing silently, he obliges and dashes off in a panic, Yuri is coming out as he is going in and they have to steady themselves on each other's arms. It prevents adding to the twenty-three year old's injuries, but they shake the contact away like dust.

Green irises squint at his face, scrutinizing and mean. "You look a mess," Yuuri just laughs while they rush by each other. "I got into a situation with a maid and a door."

Not quite wanting to press on, Yuri frowns and walks away. The twitch on his lips is definitely not in amusement. Yuuri and his stupid antics are just that. Stupid. Tiresome and he can't quite comprehend how someone could be so much of a sieve-head.

The tiny little snicker is entirely because Yuuri got hurt. It's good that little twat got a slap in the face for once- he was well overdue one in Yuri's opinion.

 

Sunshine beats down and coats their skin in a glossy coat of syrup. Man, it's still like minus-one hundred degrees but the sky is bright, birds are chirping as they slide between stark clouds, landing in evergreen trees.

"Here," Yakov is sucking on a cigarette while his students hover; avaiting critique. He offers the gold packet to Yuri, who looks curiously and reaches out.

It's like a slow motion bomb in Yuuri's eyes, as though the teenager will literally full-on die if he even touches the package. So with ninja-like reflexes he slaps Yuri's hand away, unintentionally hard enough to redden the skin.

"Are you crazy?" his eyebrows backwards bungee-jump up into his hairline, not particularly knowing which of the two maniacs he is talking to. "Yakov he is only fifteen! He can't smoke."

Yuri is rubbing his hand a little huffily, but not otherwise too bothered while Yakov shrugs boredly. "I started much earlier than that," he supplies. However Yakov has the voice of a frog with sandpaper down his throat, and the only thing that stopped him becoming a world-class skater was his poor, smoking-induced bad health. He isn't exactly the poster boy for good decisions.

"Yeah well times have changed," he looks pointedly Yuri. Not exactly wanting to be a stick in the mud, but he knows what it's like to be young and impressionable. "Kids are smart enough to know better."

"When did you turn into such a mother-hen?" Yakov laughs in that grumbling, volcano-giant chortle. It causes Yuri to vacate the conversation in a muttering of curses, while Yuuri leans back, hands on hips, and wonders when exactly did that happen indeed.

 

"That's coming along really well," the dark haired skater is leaning over the railing, watching his younger rival. A flick of his wrist transports a bottle of water into the blonde's hands. "Your landings are real smooth."

Silently, he nods and guzzles down the whole bottle like a drain. "I'm struggling with the second step sequence," he admits like it takes all his willpower, brain held hostage and forced to admit weakness.

"It's not easy," he smiles in agreement, crossing the barrier and joining; despite the fact he's already exhausted and dripping sweat all over the rink. "Step sequences aren't too bad for me, it's landing that last axel that gets me."

Yuri is bent over, blinking to clear his vision before he starts back up again. "All good?" he nods the affirmative and unfolds, stretching arms above his head. "If you need a break don't be afraid to say, I'm taking one now."

Stubborn as a mule in concrete, the blonde shakes his head the opposite way this time. No amount of fatigue, exhaustion or any other mere physical restraint can hold him back. "I can keep going," he utters, looking away and back at Yuuri a few times.

It seems as though he is fighting every sane thought in his mind. Angels and devils debating on his shoulders. God, could he actually lower himself like this? Well, he did say he would give up his whole body for skating, so what's his self-respect too?

"Can you show me how to do that sequence in the middle," he clenches his jaw, looking away to avoid literally puking over Yuuri's face at the disgusting hope in his eyes. "Like the way Viktor does it," he adds, as Yuuri is the biggest Viktor fan around, bar the man himself.

"Sure, as long as you show me how to do that Salchow from the second half."

What does Yuuri think this is? A wee friendship? Two bros, hanging out, figure-skating together or something. If he thinks they are all buddy-buddy he has another thing coming. Yuri wants nothing to do with him- he actually despises him to be precise.

It's not like he trusts Yuuri- this is purely for his performance. He is professional enough to ask for... professional help, when needs be. His own pride comes second, if Yuuri can make him win, he will use him until he is the best.

"Wow," Yuuri covers his mouths, looking sparkly and more youthful than the fifteen-year old can only dream of ever looking. "I can't believe how easy you make it look."

Why is the praise making him feel so- so... gross. Man, he wants to rip layers off his skin to remove this discomfort. Cheeks starting to grow warm, he coughs loudly into his hand.

"I'm just better," he mutters simply.

 

Yakov interupts, as he most often does, with a loud clap and an 'attention-all' kind of look about his face. He pretends not to look interested at the sight of the two sworn enemies laying down their weapons. But perhaps he simply doesn't care.

"Go, pack up. We are going out,"

"Huh?" Yakov is met by two bugged-out eyes; he does realise the competition is in two days, right? "Shopping. Your skates are horrendous."

Yuri looks like wants to say something but Yakov cuts him off, Russian spilling fluently off his tongue and stopping him short. "Go and shower so I don't look like I'm taking the homeless out for a trip."

Yuuri snorts, still a little shocked his coach is being suspiciously... lenient. When he shoots questioning glances at Yuri, he shrugs and says, "It's a good luck thing, something about competitions on even-numbered days."

Even Yuuri can admit his old skates are a little beat. Paint scratched and maybe the blade isn't as sharp as it once was. He isn't sure if he is confident enough to get a completely new pair of skates so soon before his programme, though.

Stopping in the doorway to the changing room. Yuuri frowns. A voice is speaking softly on the phone, inside one of the cubicles. Russian, so it's obviously Yuri- but the tone is gentle enough for him to double take. Second-guessing himself.

He prays Yuri doesn't hear him because the kid would definitely explode. So he settles against the wall, biting his lip as he tries to make out the foreign tongues. No, he isn't being incredibly nosy. No, it doesn't qualify as a breach of privacy if he can't understand the language. It's simply an act of concern.

"Mmhm," the boy says all low, tone like a crystal glass; for the first time, he actually sounds more like his age.

When the tiny, wet sniffs start, Yuuri has to saw down on his thumb nail to hold back. It actually makes his heart split in two, to hear the angry kid in quite clear, yet understated pain.

Saying goodbye in Russian, he adds an "I love you," before the call sounds off. Yuuri feels the butterflies in his tummy explode to life, shit, shit, shit. If Yuri thinks he's been listening, he's a dead man.

Instead, he hears worse. A fist thumps against the tiles and trainers squeak until a little thud hits the ground. There's no audible crying but Yuuri can't quite let himself believe that.

"I wish I could help," Yuuri thinks, and he doesn't think he has ever felt guilt to this degree in his whole life. Which says something, considering his twenty-three years have been filled with anxiety and topped-off with failures.

When he enters an ajacent shower block, he mentally draws up his strategies while shampooing quickly. Going in all guns blazing simply isn't going to work- even goddamn Viktor agrees on that. However leaving things to pester may be more harm than help.

As a responsible adult, he has a moral and ethical duty to help. Competitions, awards, insults- they mean nothing when there is a kid suffering and everyone else seems oblivious. He wasn't raised to sit back and watch a... well, a friend, fall to pieces.

Shampoo swirls around his toes, frothy like the oceans spilling up to the shore. If only he knew what the problem was. Perhaps the stress of competing has gone to his head, a reasonable possibilty considering Yuuri is fully grown, yet has a meltdown twice a week.

"Yuuri?" he is plunged from his thoughts by a taut voice, strung with emotion that's barely masked by the two streams. "Do you have a spare towel, I- I forgot mine."

Fumbling rapidly to turn his water off, Yuuri stutters, "O-of course, hang on, I have one here and- ouch!" he slides, just about catching himself on the wall. "-Here!"

One for his body, one for his hair. (Just kidding, he's paranoid someone will steal his while he is shampooing). He hands the spare over the wall to Yuuri who begrudgedly thanks him.

It speaks wonders of how distracted he is if he even forgot a towel- going for a shower.

As Yuuri reaches to return to his aquatic life, suds from Yuri's stall bubble through to entangle around his feet. Red tinged and ominous, Yuuri doesn't give a shit about being subtle anymore.

"Yuri!" he bangs on the thin wall. "Why the hell is there blood coming in to my shower?"

"What?" he snaps in confusion, Yuuri thumps on the door again like an annoying neighbour. "Open up right now Yuri!" he feels his entire body grow slick with cold sweat, even in his frantic eyes.

Ignoring him, the teen continues washing but that's not good enough for Yuuri who thumps his way into the no-man's land in a frenzied breach of privacy.

"Holy shit!" Yuri screams, pulling his towel around while the Japanese skater shields his eyes, shrieking in pure instict. "GET OUT!"

"You're bleeding," Yuuri accuses sounding less sure now that he's trembling in the door of another guy's stall. "I'm not!" Yuri snarls defensively back, arms folded across his chest as he holds his towel with a death grip.

Yuuri's eyes trail to the floor where a small pool of blood outlines his feet. "Yuri," he croaks and the blonde follows his eyes, throat catching in shock. "It's only blisters, would you just piss off?"

"Let me see," he says slowly, covering his eyes with a shaking hand. "Are you an actually fucking creep?" Yuri shrieks; he probably would have lunged at him for a punch if his dignity wasn't heavily on the edge.

"You are bleeding into my shower, do you think that isn't going to freak someone out?" he is starting to feel incredibly out of his depth. "I will clean it up!" he narrows his eyes and his voice takes on that high, manic tone that sets alarm bells ringing.

"You know rightly that isn't what I mean," Yuuri sighs tiredly. "Sit down so I can check you haven't gotten an infection," it is hard injecting cotton into his panicked tone when he can just feel his thoughts running around like headless chickens; sheets upon sheets of paper tossed up into the air.

"It is a fucking blister Yuuri. I am not a weakling like you!" he spits and Yuuri just moves and grabs his shoulder, steering him heavily to sit on the floor. "Just hold still," he grabs a foot and wraps a tight hand around his ankle; a firm grasp perfect for wriggling escapes.

As expected, his feet are in absolute shreds. Yuuri only thought his own were bad, this takes damage to another level. Insane amounts of blisters aren't even the main problem, slices of pretty deep wounds and scars mark his sole and heels, edges red raw and tearing. It is a wonder he can even walk, never mind skate.

"Oh Yuri," he presses his hand against his mouth. Regular practice doesn't do that to you, even under Yakov's strenuous regime. It's all the signs of overwork right there.

"Shut up," he kicks away, dragging his knees forward to his chest. Shit. Oh no. A lump is pressing so, so extremely tightly against his throat that he can barely breathe. He sniffs deeply to rein back in the liquid building hotly at the front of his eyes. However, it comes out as a soaked snivel so he shoves a fist into his mouth and bites down.

"It's just because it hurts!" he explodes in a defensive, high-pitched splutter. Literally, he feels pathetic. "I know it does," Yuuri is just about as lame, sounding like he's going to start bawling and all. Yuri swipes furiously at the little bastard, traitorous tears that cackle and howl as they slide to his cheeks.

"But what's really hurting...you can tell me. You know that you can. I- I mean there's nothing that will scare me away or shock me. I promise," he has reached out and grabbed Yuri's wrist.

Thankfully wearing a towel, Yuri notes or he could have been getting a matching family of bruises on his creepy-ass face.

"I am not going away, I swear. I won't leave no matter how many times you try and push me away," his hand is rubbing these wee gentle circles over the wet skin there, goosebumps playing ring-a-rosies across his arms.

No. God. Please stop. Tears keep coming, silent ones thankfully, ones he can pretend can be passed off as water from his soaked head and he claws them away. It's just the pain in his feet getting worse, that's all.

"You aren't by yourself, like I know it's a lot of pressure all these competitions and traveling away from home-"

"I'm fine, okay?" he croaks, swallowing hard before leveling his tone into a familiar, heavy snarl. "I don't need anyone! -and I certainly don't need you or your petty lectures about things you're imagining in your head!"

"I certainly didn't imagine this though!" he points at the teenager's curled toes; they really look like they do need professional medical attention. "That is what you call actual work, not that you would know considering the amount of times you fall on your ass, or give up!"

Hurt flashes in Yuuri's brown eyes for long enough to make Yuri want to hurl himself out the nearest window. Again, with that kicked puppy look. Low-key guilt makes his anger swell- which in turn makes him feel even guiltier. A vicious cycle he is destined never to break out of.

"I'm telling Yakov," Yuuri says as he climbs to his feet. An air of mature finality that makes the Russian panic all over. "N-No, wait! You can't do that!"

"If you won't listen to me, and even worse, if you think this kind of overwork- or rather damage, is normal and okay on your own body... well, maybe you aren't ready for this kind of competitive skating."

It might very well be bait. At least 80% likely it is a bait. Yuri is repeating it over, and over, and over again. Yuuri is too much of a coward. A chicken. A wimp, to do anything about, well, -anything. He is is calling your bluff, he soothes himself.

But large, frenzied green eyes and a body that trembles worse than an earthquake tell another story. Simply, he cannot take any chances. The stakes are too high and it's too risky to chance so close to the competition.

"I-I didn't mean it. I'm sorry, okay?" he has said goodbye to his self-respect and is practically begging at Yuuri's feet. "I know it's not okay, I've been working too much on bad shoes- it's why I asked Yakov to go out today!"

A total and complete lie. Quick thinking on his part and he is proud of the way he has twisted things to suit himself. His skin, however, feels ice cold as all the blood has drained out from sheer fear.

"I won't do it again, I swear. But you can't tell him, he's too old for all this stress."

A small dose of emotional blackmail never goes amiss.

"I'm not doing this to hurt you, or to weed you out of the competition, Yuri," he says and it looks like he is in the middle of a serious, moral dilemma. "It wouldn't be right if I left it like this."

God, he is actually impossible. "What do you want from me?" he cries, patience drawn like a pin. Liquid is sloshing in his eyeballs and he says if any single tear leaves, it will be the last as he will go to a clinic and get the lot sucked out. They hear the threat and instead, hover warily.

"I just want you to be happy, is that such a terrible notion?" pity-eyebrows all creased up like he actually cares.

Yuri could laugh. That idiot doesn't give a shit, the only concern he has is himself, Viktor and meddling in his life with the sheer objective of annoying him.

"Worry about your own life before you stick your nose in mine," Yuri threatens darkly, well as dark as he can all soaked, half-naked and fending off the tears.

Yakov pops a blood vessel from outside. They hear the splatter of bloodshed against the walls and the shriek of assistants. "We haven't got all day!" he roars, "Hurry up!"

Old ground tramped on once again, they scramble to get ready in a panic. However, this time Yuuri thinks he is starting to get in a little deeper and he isn't letting go now his teeth are fairly sunk.

 

Yakov drums chunky fingers on the steering wheel, his elbow out the window as he puffs on a cig. "So have you two had a falling out?" he breathes smoke out into the chilly air.

A gigantic tension-bubble has followed them into the car and resides in the empty back seat between them. Sticky walls enclosing them like some kind of impermeable alien sack or something. Yuri is a seething demon, chucked down from the pits of hell and scorching with blood-red eyes. On the other hand, Yuuri sits as a little angel, pure and ethereal, brown eyes all liquidised and sad.

A fine battle line drawn between the heavens, Yakov a passive observer to the apparent blood-spilling war.

"Here I was thinking you two were the best of friends," Yakov remarks, taking a glance back to make sure Yuri hasn't ripped any of his temporary pupil's limbs apart yet.

Neither say a word, the blonde huffing deeper into his seat.

 

When they pull up, the area is congested with traffic and their ears ring with honks. A huge multi-story carpark is ahead of them and when they vacate, they make the small trek to the store.

Lights flash advertisements in reds, yellows and blues on the window. Buy now! Half price! One time only! It is alluring in a way and Yuri looks up with green eyes, they glow with the sheen of technology-mirrors and Yuuri pretends not to be worried-staring.

"Good brand that," Yakov notes to his assistant. "Streamline, comfortable fit, blade seems appropriate."

Never in his life has Yuuri seen so many pairs of skates. Man, the variety of choice goes to his head. Colours, styles, mechanics- there is too much. "I don't know which to choose, my old set were pretty nice."

Yakov rolls his eyes, circular balls like lazy globes. "Just pick something," he urges, very unhelpfully indeed. Yuri seems to be drooling over a pair of hideous cheetah print ones.

They are so ugly, he could laugh but Yuuri seems to have fallen in love, unashamedly snapping pics off his similarly patterned iPhone. "Those?" Yakov scowls. "I would be put to shame if you wore those in competition."

Feigning disinterest, he looks away but Yuuri spots the sag in his shoulders and pulls out his bank card. "I'll buy them, what size do you need?"

Two stricken Russians gape back. Yakov's mouth dropping a little; lead in an ocean. It doesn't freeze however, and he shakes his head quickly. Deep wrinkles relax, "No, everything is on me. Try them on and then choose a more sensible pair."

Sweat bubbles at his hairline, fingernails dig lightly into his palms in sheer panic. That's all very well, however he's having a bit of a feet 'period' and can feel his socks damp already.

"Hurry," Yakov nudges as Yuuri holds a black and silver pair, examining them. "No, it's okay. I don't want any."

"You've never been coy before, what's up with you?" Yakov is pretty perceptive when he isn't sticking his head in the sand. After all, he has years of experience dealing with a bratty child- side-eyes to Viktor.

They exchange a brief tiff in their native language before with a sharp tone, Yuri ends the exchange in a typical manner; leaving behind an enraged cloud of dust.

"Huh?" the Japanese Yuuri looks up to the flurry of a parting blonde bob. Akin to a magnetic force, a kind of inbred instinct leads him to shadow the youth like an assassin, or a timid mouse.

"Go back," he warns, recognising the squeak of sneakers on linoleum floors. "I'm trying these on and I didn't ask for an audience," By now, he concludes Yuuri isn't going to listen to a damn word he says.

"How do you suppose you're going to do that?" Yuuri kneels by the bench, trying on his own flash pair. "When your feet are in that shape?"

"Stop looking at me like that!" the fifteen-year old bites, venom slushes through his veins in an endorphin-fueled rage. "Like what?" Yuri explodes in frustration, "In pity- like you think I'm an invalid or something."

"-And you talk about me imagining things?" he rolls his eyes with a quip, his own black skates sliding on as silky smooth as freshly creamed butter. "Pfft," is all he receives.

It shouldn't be difficult. One shoe removed, another slipped on. It isn't rocket science- he does it every day. But biological wary holds him back, pain receptors quivering at the thought of stimulation.

Yuuri raises an eyebrow in challenge. It might not be malice-laiden but his rival takes it as such, ripping off his trainer with a cry of pain.

"Fuck, fuck!" he groans, eyes drawn into squeezed-up shutters.

White hot pain buzzes from the tips of his toes to the top of his spine. Instantly he feels boneless, fleshy muscles and stringy tendons burning with agonising pangs. Sight fails him for a moment, white to black and all over again; liquid collecting at the edges.

"You're okay," Yuuri is at his ear, rubbing in between his shoulder blades in a soothing, circular fashion. Without even an ounce of energy to shove him away, he is defenseless to his sympathy.

"Yakov!" he is calling. "Please," Yuri looks at him pleadingly, whimpering pathetically under his hands. When he has a guy practically passing out taking off his shoes, Yuuri stops caring about petty obligations to a boy who hates his guts.

Ignoring this isn't going to do him any good.

"Eh?"

Coach Yakov thunders in but deflates when he sees his pupil in such a feeble mess.

"What?" he frowns at Yuuri, this situation feeling all too familiar. Shaking his head, he points towards the small footprint of blood below Yuri's foot. Melting confusion leads to utter something else. He's utterly horrified.

"I'm- okay," he hisses out through laboured breathing. "Just a torn blister."

Ignoring him, he turns to the younger man, "Take him to the car, I will get my assistant to pay. We need to get that stiched and wrapped in a hospital."

"No!" he cries, really starting to look his age as he turns frenziedly to Yuuri. "Please... no."

Holding onto his wrist and giving it a comforting rub, he almost wells up himself with the stripped-back fear in his face. He remembers doing this when Yuuko fell and sliced her knees on stones so bad, that she needed three sets of stitches.

"Shhhh,"

 

Helping him up to the car is no simple feat- pardon the pun, but the wounds have reopened and if he even suggesting carrying Yuri; the kid would act on his nickname and clawed his face to bits.

Carrying the shopping bags instead, he thanks Yakov who is currently assisting his pupil with a strong grip. They are talking in Russian, much too quiet for the native Japanese man to even translate.

Thankfully, the hospital isn't very far ahead at all and Yuuri helps him to the Accident & Emergency doors while their coach parks up.

"I can't do this. You can't make me!" he grinds out in a last-ditch attempt of escape. "I'll stop calling you names, and- and I'll stop insulting Viktor."

Almost smiling sadly, Yuuri shakes his head. "It'll take five minutes. In and out, then you'll feel way better." Yuri bites down on the corner of his mouth, hard enough to taste metal on his tongue. "You don't understand-"

A red-haired nurse looks up at her cart, striken. Pulling a hand to her mouth, she jogs over with concern evident on her youthful brow. Big blue eyes that remind him of his boyfriend (sighs) Yuuri watches her curiously.

Pained yes, dangerous yes, but he hadn't thought Yuri's state warranted this kind of reaction.

"Mr Plisetsky, is that you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dramatic gasps*
> 
> you read this far! thanks so much for sticking with me on this story!!!!! it means the world reading you guys comments/thoughts- like its mountains of motivation. so thanks so much!!!! let me know if you have any thinking concotions to share!!
> 
> <3 :)x


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy monday!!!!
> 
> so i have recovered from my death from the last ep. (jk im still dying) but that scene of yuuri chasing yuri for a hug- that's basically my fic summarised!
> 
> i bring to you a new chapter- one fueled by the intense inspiration and motivation you guys gave me!! seriously it gives me so much life!!
> 
> i love this fandom so much! <3 :)x

"What on Earth has happened?"

Yuri doesn't know quite how to explain that, feeling his mouth lose any moisture it once retained; he gapes at her like an idiot. Funnily enough, when he tilts his head to glance at his Japanese counterpart, he's doing the same.

"I- I just got hurt skating, it isn't a big deal!" he fumbles with his words like he's flicking through a deck of mismatched cards. They fall, raining clubs, hearts and spades on his primary-coloured sneakers. Her face softens, like melted plastic moulding around her silk-like, crimson hair.

"Nurse Levkin," she introduces herself to Yuuri in English and he smiles, barely masking his utter confusion.

"Come on to reception, I'll get you seen to but you'll need to fill out your details,"  
Yuuri steadies the trembling teenager in his hands, it's like lugging a hesitant bag of flour around with him. Protest digging into his suffering heels. "Do you know each other?" he says, innocently enough. He isn't sticking the man under interrogation or anything.

"What? No!" he scowls, scrunching his nose like Yuuri has just battered his cat to death. "Just shut up!"

Accident & Emergency waiting rooms are commonly known as little microcosms of Hell on Earth. Screaming, wailing children- and adults too for that matter, bloody trails following half-sawed off limbs round shiny corridors. Bleach stinks up the place, disinfecting the very hairs in their nostrils.

They wait in line at the desk to reception and Yuri feels incredibly silly and childish as he clings on to Yuuri, praying his legs won't give out embarrassingly in the middle of the room.

"It shouldn't be too long of a wait," Yuuri notes. He certainly didn't expect to be spending the eve, of the eve of the Russian short programme in A&E. At least not for someone else. But he isn't going to complain, it is what it is and he would much rather support Yuri. Despite what the kid says, he obviously hates hospitals, and simply couldn't do this by himself.

"Next please!" a middle aged Russian lady barks from behind the counter.  
She lowers her glasses to peer at the two, sending on a man with his wrist tilted all kinds of unnatural directions.

Yuuri gawks at it when their paths cross, blood draining he focuses on keeping his stomach contents exactly where they are. Don't pass out, don't pass out.

"Yuri Plisetsky, 15 years old," he speaks in Russian, leaning slightly over the counter causing Yuuri to come too, keeping him from also topping over. If Yuuri faints, Yuri is going down too. The thought of the kid in even worse agony... it sobers him up. He can't be weak at a time like this.

"What has happened, Yuri?" she types up his details on a database. "My feet- they are all cut up and bleeding." She looks up curiously before continuing typing. Loud, fake fingernails banging on the keyboard like a drill against concrete. Yuri has to physically hold back his irritation.

"Okay, I am going to need a parent or guardian to fill in this form," she passes it over, "Because you are under 16 we are obligated to seek consent for any treatment you receive."

Oh shit. Oh no. Neither of the two had considered this and the queue is building up behind them- half dying folks coughing, spluttering and squealing. There's no time to wait for Yakov to see what he thinks on the matter.

"Here, I'll fill it in," Yuuri is moderately freaking out, but his quick thinking doesn't go unseen as Yuri turns to gape at him.

Fingernails looks pensively, lowering her glasses even further done her nose. If they get any lower they're going to fall right off her miserable face. "Are you over 18?"

Both of the skaters snort, Yuuri looking ever so slightly mortified. "I am 23."

Sure you are, she is bound to be thinking: the guy looks like a freaking twelve year old with his soft face and innocent expression. However, he takes the form and signs off his name- taking responsibility for Yuri's treatment.

Name: Katsuki Yuuri. Age: 23. Nationality: Japanese. Messy English litters the form, it is strange to go from writing in Japanese to an entirely different language. Ticking several boxes and filling out contact details and insurance stuff, he gives back the form with an amiable smile.

"Go and take a seat, we'll be with you now."  
Collapsing with a relieved sigh into a chair, they both sink into the hard-backed haven.

"You shouldn't have done that," Yuri looks uneasy, nibbling at his thumb nail with nervous teeth. "I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable, but I had no other choice," Yuuri says diplomatically, he's trying hard not to rile the guy up enough to start an argument among the injured and wounded.

"You aren't anything to do with me-" he grinds out in frustration. It almost seems like Yuri is in a constant state of either a bubbling volcano, fuming and quaking with the impending, explosive eruption; or dormant, smoking with the ashes of one and stewing in the destruction caused, smithereens surround and he's cold and empty.

"I am your friend," Yuuri shrugs innocently. He looks so carefree and optimistic. At times, he might a depressive sod with no self-confidence, but ultimately this is who he is. Idealistic and kind, he looks at the world in every goddamn colour it is, bathing in the vivid greens, blues, pinks and red; acknowledging the dark greys, blacks and browns and using them in his palate to make the best fucking painting he can.

"Why?" it makes no sense whatsoever- they have nothing in common and Yuri isn't even flipping nice to him at the best of times. "I don't know," Yuuri laughs and it infuriates him even more.

"There you are!" she who had already been announced as Nurse Levkin strolls fast-paced to where they are sitting. Slinking like jelly off a spoon, off his chair, Yuri has left it too late to hide and she bounces to kneel in front of him.

"You get signed in okay?" she smiles at him with a lovely warmth- Yuuri likes her already. "Yeah," the teenager mutters but it isn't in his usual despondent way. At least he has some manners for some adults.

"Hopefully you won't be waiting too long," she takes a quick glance at her watch. "Grandad wouldn't be too happy if you're skiving practice to come and see him!" her eyes crease with the quip, oblivious of the effect the comment has had.

Aeroplanes of knowledge crash into Yuuri's brain while Yuri wishes a real one would crash in, wiping them both out. Underneath his shirt, he can feel the drops of sweat beading out of his panicking pores like raindrops on a windscreen. Hot, cold, hot, cold- he doesn't know which he is and his lungs aren't quite sure what to do with the sudden lack of oxygen, carbon dioxide clouding up his weak veins.

"He has been asking after you all day, you know?" she grins, completely unaware. "Yuri this and Yuri that, I hear more about you from him than I do from you!"

Wiping away the cold sweat on his face, hands shaking so noticeably Yuuri feels horrendous. It shouldn't have been like this. Why did Yuri's granddad have to be ill? How on Earth was this fair? "It's okay, take a deep breath," he soothes in what he hopes is a comforting voice.

"Yuri?" she touches his knee and he flinches back, unintentionally ending up pushed further into his not-so-kind-of friend. "I-I'm sorry, had you not spoken to Yuuri about this yet?"

Her brows fold up like a lawn chair, sympathy evident and probably a little bit of guilt about running her mouth. "It's nice to meet you," she said in last-ditch attempt at changing subject. "Yuri talks about you a lot- you seem to be a good friend to him."

Mortification isn't even the word for it. That would be the biggest understatement of the century... how could anyone in such a high-esteemed profession be such a down right dufus? Almost like the breaking of a dam, blood gushes into his previously blanched cheeks at such a rapid pace he tries to get up; he has to get as far away from here as possible. To top it off- a nice glazed icing of humiliation on the shit-storm that is his life, Yuuri is smothering down a vomit-producing beam that could split the ceiling. Smug as a pig in muck, he observes with little glittery eyes.

"You've got the wrong person!" he points accusingly, but there's no covering up the heavy blush that's starting to spread to his neck and ears like a contagious rash. "Why would I talk about such a- a loser!"

Nurse Levkin laughs a hoarse, positively dirty, deep laugh. "Yuuri Katsuki? Am I mistaken?" Please send a strike of lighting down upon me right now, Yuri prays to whoever is listening. Please blanch out my memory, preferably theirs, and for that he decides he will even sacrifice his feet on the A&E examining table if that's what it takes. He would prefer to die in pride and dignity, bleeding to death from his feet. Rather than a slow, painful, shame-induced asphyxiation.

"This skater Viktor has taken on who is, and I quote, 'pretty talented' and 'kind of okay'... sounds like high praise in my book!" Shut up, goddamn it, please shut up! "Your granddad said you were shy but I didn't think it was as bad as this," she teases him mercilessly leaving Yuuri a wheeze-laughing mess and Yuri vaguely wanting to give up skating, suffocate Yuuri and perhaps hide in a freezing, dark cave somewhere. And not particularly in that order.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she covers her mouth giggling and when she reaches out to pinch his cheek, he slaps it away with lightning fast reflexes. No one expels his entire thoughts to Yuuri, shatters his stone-cold reputation and still gets to touch his silky-soft skin. Which yes, he does moisturise. Don't you see how the cold affects his skin?

"Yuri Plisetsky?"

Breaking their brief moment of calm, (well for the two who weren't currently bleeding through their trainers anyway), a male nurse looks up from a clipboard at the top of the waiting room. Standing on instinct to assist, Yuuri is practically pushed back down again.

It feels like his skin is crawling. Slimy and gross, wriggling away. He knows far, far too much and Yuri can't predict what he will do with the information. Swallowing thickly, lumps like peach-stones and knees like conkers, he stumbles forward. Then promptly falls.

Anticipating a loss of balance, two porters swoosh in from the sides- the real life superheroes of our time and collect the teenager into a wheelchair. "I'll come too-" Yuuri starts, crinkly worried face painted on but Yuri flips him off. "Stay where you fucking are," he points despite the fact that, ouch, ouch, ouch, pain has never been so all-encompassing as it has felt right now. "I don't need anyone to hold my hand."

Dropping back to his chair, shoulders sagging and fingers finding the threads of his jacket sleeve. Nurse Levkin gives him a sympathetic smile. "I have two teenage girls," she offers up and he's shocked at that purely based on the complete absence of age on her face. "It's not for the faint-hearted, but the trick is to not take anything to heart."

"I- I- I'm only trying to help, you know? But I don't know how. Anything I do is wrong... I feel like I'm getting somewhere with him and then it's straight back to square one all over again. His granddad is sick- how can I fix that?" Once Yuuri starts talking, he simply can't stop.

Pressure is making his back ache. He isn't exactly emotionally stable himself and now he carries the weight of a kid and his sickly grandfather. For the first time, he starts to feel like he's bitten off more than he can chew.

Yuuri lacks people skills, to a certain degree at least. So why he thought he could be of any help to the Russian youth, he doesn't know. He is drowning in this but he doesn't think he wants to escape now.

Despite their differences, he considers the kid a good friend. Even going as far as to say, perhaps family. He has a jagged, venomous-snake tongue, and bitchy-cat claws; a monstrous growl and ice-queen eyes that could frighten even Yakov. And his words... they hurt like hell, cutting right to the bone and sinking in to penetrate the marrow and fluid. But that's okay.

At the end of the day, when you back a wild animal into a corner it's going to snarl, and bark, and inevitably bite. Fight or flight. Basic, ancestral, human instinct that is rooted deep inside for protection. It would be arrogant to assume humans are so far separated from their feral counterparts, even nowadays.

"When will his granddad get better?" Yuuri asks her, pulled from thought as she hands him a polystyrene cup of liquidised tarmac.  
Blue eyes flicker to somewhere behind him, her throat moving with the effort of swallowing. "I don't... I don't think he's going to get home again."

"What?" his eyes widen, amplifying the sudden blooming of tears. "That can't be true!" he scrambles for words, "He- he can't be..."

She shakes her head, giving this stranger she has basically just met today, a comforting pat on the back. It's her job pretty much, to sew up the physical and the emotional wounds of the masses. That doesn't just go away because she's on her tea break. "I know, honey. He is very sick with lung disease. It's a miracle he is lasting this long the doctors are saying. But they're starting to fail, Yuri knows this too. He's freezing and on a ventilator most of the time," Nurse Levkin brushes a swoop of red hair away from her creased forehead. "I wish there was more we could do, but I think the old man is just holding out to see his boy make the Grand Prix."

A splosh of water hits Yuuri's jeans and he wipes it away. "Which room is Yuri in?" he asks in a choking voice. "I need to find him."

 

Lying up on the bed, is a porcelain doll. Gentle blonde locks chopped to perfection, eyes closed like in a blissful dream, and encased in a white hospital gown.

"Excuse me?" the doctor fixing up his IV line looks up in shock. "I'm his friend," the doctor looks unsure and Yuri's eyes flicker open. He looks tired but after the initial shock fades, he barely reacts. "What's going on?"

The doctor is checking the fluid line on the bag above, "We have sterilised the wounds, treated them and are running a low dose of antibiotics through an IV line. However, following his blood results, Mr Plisetsky is heavily dehydrated and has malnutrition. A mild electrolyte imbalance is also present so we're giving him treatment for this too."

"Is he okay?" Yuuri gasps. He takes a couple of steps forward until he's at the end of the bed.

"Yes, sir. He should be just fine, when the treatment is administered he is free to go. But he needs to collect a prescription of pain medication, sterile wrap for his feet and nutrient replacements down at the pharmacy this evening."

With a pleasant little nod of the head, the little doctor leaves and the thumping of a pulsing hospital full of life, entangles up his thoughts. It's hard to think of anything really when he's just staring down at his friend looking so horribly unwell.

How could Yuuri let it get to this stage? All those seconds and minutes, his feet literally seeping blood into his shoes and his poor cells sobbing for oxygen, and Yuuri let every miniscule second continue as he suffered.

"It hurts very bad," he says, quiet and sleepy.

Eyelids low on dozy eyes, he reaches out to grab the hem of the Japanese man's jacket. It instantly occurs to Yuuri that he is rather doped-up on drugs and probably doesn't know quite what's going on.

"Make it go away," he mumbles, "Please, Yuuri." Having to swipe away eye-rivers for the second time today, he feels like he literally can't stomach anymore. He'll end up in the adjacent bed with dehydration too. "I would, you know I would if I could."

"Where's my granddad?" he opens his eyes, and looks like even a breath of wind could crush him.

So fragile it is actually making his chest ache. "In the hospital here, Yuuri. Just you go back to sleep until your treatment is finished," he reaches over and combs a bit of hair out of his face, surprised the action is taken passively and his skin remains un-clawed. "I want my granddad," he sniffs into the sheets.

"I know you do, but he's just taking a nap... we can't go and wake him just yet. I'll tell him you're grand. You just lie back, okay? I'll wait right here. I'm not going anywhere," he breathes it like a promise, and it is. Yakov can come and find them.

Nimble, pale fingers tighten on his jacket. But there's barely any strength behind them, so Yuuri easily tugs them off so he's not at risk of damaging his IV line, and places his arm back down on the sheets; letting him hold his sleeve from there instead. "You're going to go. I know you are," he slurs, barely comprehensible as his eyes slip shut. "You're wrong, as usual."

Yuuri sighs and tugs over a chair.

However long it takes for Yuri's veins to soak up all that water, drugs and electrolytes, he can wait.

 

Yakov is a fantastic coach, and a brilliant mentor. But the man seems to be slacking on those two today as he smokes out on the front door. Drooped eyes staring at pretty women deep in their sixties, coats trailing almost as much as their boobs, he seems to have forgotten his young student inside and it takes him a good half an hour to then catch up, relocating his team.

"I got held up in parking," he mutters, "Where on Earth did you go?" he asks a whispering Japanese man over the phone.

After rattling off the ward number, and room number, and vending machine number, because- damn, he is absolutely starving. Yakov makes his way up, armed full of supplies for Yuuri's stakeout.

Reality hits like a bitch when he slides back the electric-blue curtains and reveals Yuri lying, sleeping softly on the bed. It's like seeing some kind of alien hooked up into the kid's body, a Freaky Friday kind of twist of events. Because surely that's not him. His feet were bad, yes. But this is being a bit dramatic.

"What the hell happened?" it takes all of Earth's forces to keep Yakov's voice below the decimal range of a small lawn-mower.

"Did you two kill each other while I was away?" Shaking his head, Yuuri looks down at the teenager holding his sleeve between two fingers on the bed. "When they did tests they found he was really badly dehydrated, low in vitamins and minerals, and something to do with electrolytes in his blood."

Shock stuns the older man's face. "What?" his eyebrows shrivel in fury, wrinkles stretching to attention like he's offended by the mere notion of ill health.

"Is this Yuri we are talking about?" Denial is a truly fascinating thing, really. "I make sure he drinks loads of water... and the kid's always eating those disgusting snacks."

Yuuri shrugs. "I don't know," he chews his lip pensively. "I think the stress of his grandfather, the competition, everything- it's just piling on top of him and he can't find his way out. He must be neglecting himself, I mean, do you know much about his home life?"

Yakov frowns at his tone. "I'm not discussing Yuri's private matters with you, but I check in on him most days."

The thought of a fifteen year-old going back to an empty flat, after coming from a pain-staking day of practice or a heart-wrenching visit to his sickly granddad. It is making his heart feel papery and weak, like it's going through a shredder again, and again, and again. "He lives alone?"

Grunting with fatigue and choking from excess tar in his lungs, Yakov pulls out a chair and sits down next to him. "I really don't know very much. All I know is that he lives with his grandfather, and I check in on him often like I promised I would."

So yes, then. Yuri does live alone. Well no wonder he's so malnourished and sick. As far as Yuuri can see, his only present parental figure is lying up in hospital, on his deathbed. Feeling his detective hat needing a little dust-off, he scratches at his frazzled hair. Where did his parents go? Who could leave their child behind like that?

Stirring, their hearts catapult into their mouths as Yuri threatens to waken.

Dropping the subject for now, they sit quietly on their respective chairs. Munching on vending machine snacks, sipping sludgy coffee, and reading fashion magazines from 2007... all they can really do is wait.

 

Fading, Yuuri drifts off into a restless snooze when Yakov leaves. After all, the competition is tomorrow and they have a lot to prepare for. Unbeknown to him, his phone vibrates in his pocket.

'Missed Calls - Viktor Nikiforov (27), Mum (5), Yuuko (3), Minako (2)'.

However, not even the constant vibrations can shake off his slumber. It's only when he hears a little cough from the bed, mere metres in front, does he stir. Yawning, scrubbing at his half-blinded eyes and squinting around the room, reality sets in.

"Hey," he whispers sleepily to Yuri as he comes around. Sliding glasses back up his nose, the picture of the sickly adolescent becomes clearer.

"I'm in hospital," he utters unsurely, eyebrows painted into confused little slopes.

"Yeah," Yuuri shushes, "You're okay though. The doctors just did a few tests and found a couple of problems with your blood levels... don't panic though," he adds, noting the steadily terrified expression. "Once the antibiotics, fluids and isotonic solution is all used up, you're free to go."

Releasing a shaking breath, Yuri licks at his dry lips. Round green spheres roll like a ball on the river, side to side gently. Information stutters in his brain. Surely... no.

He couldn't have.

"What time is it? What time did you come here?" tiny creases line the top of his nose, in between his eyebrows in a kind of confused-grumpy mask.

"Around 6pm. We've been here from around 12pm. I just had a nap while we waited." Yuuri says, a gentle shrug rolling off his shoulders. Trying not to draw attention to the matter, his gaze darts for a milisecond down to the couple of inches of his sleeve- still bunched up in Yuri's palm.

"W-what, you stayed?" Vulnerability strikes him down in gut-lashing slashes.

"Of course I did," Yuuri grins, cheesy as anything. "I promised I would, Yurio, and I never break a promise."

Puffed out chest like a balloon, Yuuri meant it in a light, silly way. It is the truth, obviously, but when he says it the words feel like flour on his tongue. Clumping and tangible.

"Sorry," he buries his nose further under the covers and hopes his closed-eyelids enclose any leakage.

"Why are you sorry, you idiot," Yuuri reaches out and ruffles his sweaty locks affectionately. Something physically-well Yuri would have his elbow snapped for. "No one is cross at you, but everyone is worried and Yakov thinks maybe this is too much pressure."

"-I think he forgets sometimes that not everyone is a Viktor Nikiforov. Look at me after all, I'm almost twenty-four and I still crumble under the pressure."

"What are you talking about?" Yuri fumbles to declog his head, waving out those thick clouds of confusion.

"The dehydration, malnutrition, ionic imbalances- it's obvious you aren't being taken care of," he starts, tiptoeing in the attempt at approaching this sensitively. "It must be hard enough to deal with your grandad being sick... Yakov was just wondering if he's been adding excess pressure."

"What? No!" his voice takes on a strength that physically can't have come from a sudden burst of wellness or health. "I want to be the best, i-it's all I want, without it, I-"

Mouth dropping open, his mouth sucks in air like a hoover. Beep, beep, beep. His heart monitor shoots up, lines going a bit mental as he freaks out.

"Yuri, Yurio!"

Grabbing his other hand, he quickly caresses soothing patterns into the baby-smooth skin there. "It's okay, it's okay. No one is asking or even wanting to tell you what to do."

"-We are only concerned about your wellbeing, that's all. So if skating is helping keep you distracted and at peace, there's no one in this country that can tell you to stop."

Gusts of air are exhaled with relief. Still looking wary, Yuri accepts that for now. However, the thought of Yakov and Yuuri talking about him, and seeing him in this pitiful state... it makes him shudder.

"Is it okay if I step out to make a couple of calls?" the older man asks carefully which makes Yuri feel even more confused.

"Why wouldn't it be?" he snaps.

Slow eyes drift to the sleeve clutched for comfort in the teen's hand. Even behind his glasses, that look is still there. Yuri traces his eyeline with his own, jumping out of his skin as realisation sets in.

Embarrassment staining his cheeks, he pulls away and puts both hands on his tummy. Careful of the drips. A horrified scowl morphs his features, "Just go already, I need a break from a идиот, like you!"

Laughing, Yuuri nods, standing to stretch his aching back. He doesn't even have to speak Russian to know Yuri isn't exactly complimenting him. "Okay, okay. I won't be far away so give me or the nurse a shout if you need anything."

"I'm a bit thirsty," he admits crabbily.

"I'll bet," Yuuri grins, little wrinkly fingers spilling from the creases around his eyes. "Anything in particular you fancy? I can go all out, scour the perimeter and get whatever your heart desires."

God, this man is such a goof. How he is managing his adult years without tripping over his own feet and dying, or something equally as dumb, is a mystery to Yuri.

"Whatever," he shrugs, brow straining with the effort of remaining cross- if Yuuri thinks he's being funny, well, that simply cannot be thought about. The consequences for Yuri would be immense and devasting.

"Anything else, your majesty?" he does a little curtsy on the spot. "I can slay your enemies and bring back their head, or perhaps you seek the hand of a local maiden?"

"Oh my God- Yuuri get out!"

Suffice to say, the teen was starting to feel better as the drugs wore off and a pillow smacked Yuuri full smack in the face.

 

Surpisingly enough, he bumps into Yakov in the corridor. Not so subtly perving on a group of patients, the innocent group of pensioners talking among themselves.

"You are disgusting," Yuuri greets his highly respected mentor, all happy-faced but totally savage underneath. "I've heard you and Victor after practice, I could say the same thing," he beams back.

Non-English speakers would simply see the happy reunion of two friends.

"What are you doing here?" Yuuri slides coins into a vending machine; the little lights inside twinkly with choice. A slap of weight hits his thigh and when he looks down, a duffel bag waves excitedly up at him.

"Where did you get this?" he asks, feeling a little soppy at heart. "I brought it from Yuri's, I have a spare key. Just in case he has to stay the night."

The man shifys uncomfortably on his leather shoes, adjusting his coat to shake off Yuuri's gaze. The Japanese man's come to the conclusion that the birth of Viktor took all the emotional expression out of Russia. He simply drained the reserves dry, aplogies to Yakov and Yuri.

"Thanks," he smiles and takes it gratefully, like it's a personal favour for himself. "I'll see you tomorrow then," he coughs, taking one last look at the hospital gown-covered butts and heading on his merry way.

 

His call is answered after barely three rings.

Heaven has planted itself in between his knees in the form of a luscious, gingerbread flavoured latte. Waves of the comfortingly sweet smell hit his nose and his tastebuds water.

"Oh so I'm good enough for you, am I?" his boyfriend answers immediately. "Apparently seeing as you've indirectly dumped me I have decided to date you sister out of spite."

Yuuri chokes on his coffee, "You're gay," he points out, heat clouding up his chest with the literal love at hearing that voice again. It has been a stressful day and he's needed Viktor so much.

"Yeal, well- you've put me off boys!" he fumbles, guarding off a laugh and all. "Considering the fact you aren't immediately begging me to take you back, I might have to do the whole hog and seduce your mother!"

Apparently his nostrils wanted a taste of the drink, Yuuri actually does choke this time and cackles unattractively, wheezing red-faced like a maniac in the waiting room.

"You are terrible!"

A loud bang sounds on Viktor's side of the line and it is followed by a series of ruffles. Russian curses and the slam of a door. Viktor comes back with sheepish, "I think I will have to have a conversation with your sister later, to- uh, straighten a couple of things out."

Covering his face, Yuuri snickers into his knees. It was an atrocious idea to leave this unflappable man by himself in his family home.

"So how are you, my love? I was only teasing, but what's with the radio silence? You had me very worried," he smooths over with ease.

"Me and Yakov had to take Yuri to A&E, he's dehydrated, malnourished, has electrolyte imbalances and his feet are torn to shreds," Yuuri says as he traces his fingertips around the rim of his disposable cup. A racing car that goes round the tracks again and again.

"I'm really worried about him, Viktor," he admits. "His grandad is very sick and I don't know much about his home life- the kid could be alone for all we know."

Viktor goes very quiet indeed. "I didn't know his grandpa was ill. I always saw him at every one of Yuri's performances. He was a right age then and all- I thought nothing could kill the old geezer."

"Lung disease, I think," Yuuri speaks quietly with the irrational paranoia his younger friend will year. "A nurse told me, he hasn't spoke a word to me about it yet but he talked a bit about his grandad when he was all dosed up."

Viktor is silent, Makkachin whining in the background. "I don't know what to do Viktor, I can't just sit back and watch him fall apart."

"No," Viktor soothes softly. That comforting tone he has been aching for all day. Someone to tell -him- things were going to be okay. "Of course not, but you can't make his grandpa better, nor can you burden everyone's problems onto yourself."

"He's just a kid Viktor, and look at all the pressure on him," his voice takes on an embarrassing, trying-not-to-cry tone, congested and his chest aches. "Well I know when I was fifteen I was skating on frozen lakes, playing video games all night, and eating my mum's desserts."

"I know love, I know," he shushes gently. "I wish I was there with you now so I could take you in my arms and make everything better."

"When are you coming back?" Yuuri doesn't want to sound clingy, or like he's pining. But he is, tremendously so. All he wants too, is for Viktor to pull him to his chest and enclose him. Arms like a snuggly cocoon, the scent of rocky bath salts and cold aftershave encasing him. His very flesh pulses with the pain of absence. Why can't he just bury his nose into Viktor's muscular shoulder, threading fingers through the ivory strands on the back of his neck?

"Oh love," he says, tone littered into tiny, sharp pieces. "I will get the next flight out, okay?"

"V-Viktor," he stutters, empty cup falling to the space between his legs. "What about Makkachin?"

A smile lights up the borderline thirty-year olds voice. "I was meaning to tell you- Makkachin has been doing a little better. He can eat solid food now which is good. So considering the fact I'm now dating your mother, I suppose I can leave Makkachin with her for a bit."

A spear parts his ribcage with a sudden impalement. Loved-up blood oozes through his shirt. Luckily he's in the right place, "Viktor," he says softly.

"I couldn't miss your last programme in the beautiful land of Russia, could I?" the older man teases.

Nerves course through Yuuri, that and a little guilt. "How can I focus on my perfomance, I- I would feel horrible. I know Yuri is gonna be adament that the show goes on, and I don't think I can allow myself to sit back and let myself watch him skate. Not now I know, under his skates, he is in agony."

Viktor sighs softly into the speaker. "I don't mean to be insensitive," but you're going to be, Yuuri notes. "Just think about your priorities, love. This skate determines your place in the Grand Prix. Do you want to be a skater or a youth support worker?"

The sheer brutality of Viktor's honest thoughts still sting. "Yuri wouldn't abandon his dreams for you, not that he doesn't care about you. It's just- Yuuri, no matter what, you can't give up."

"To win the Grand Prix you must devote yourself whole-hearted, without reservation. If you can't do that Yuuri, there's no point going into this half-assed."

It's a solid weight on his chest, and the gently spoken, spiked words prick at his sensitive feelings. He takes it with a pinch of salt, though. He loves Viktor to pieces, but he isn't going to hang on his every breath.

 

"You took your time," Yuri tells him sulkily when he strolls back in, emotionally drained and looking older than he should. "Sorry, I was talking to Viktor over the phone."

"Trouble in paradise?" he perceives, the moody teenager raising an eyebrow. "No, no," Yuuri smiles, smoothing it over like frosting on a cake. "Me and Viktor don't argue. We just stop sending each other memes for a couple of hours."

Slowly taking the tall bottle of apple juice, Yuri glances up quickly. "Are you going to stop sending any memes today?" he asks, kind of sullen as he subtly studies the juice's contents.

"Maybe on my end," Yuuri smiles, but it looks a little painted on. "Is it because-" he shakes his head, readjusting his words. "Is Viktor cross with me?"

Not that he cares what that moron thinks or anything. It's just a social survey, coming up to Christmas and everything. He needs to know who he can boot off his Christmas card list.

"What?" Yuuri looks like a kicked puppy again. "No, of course not, Yurio. Why would you think something so silly?" he fights the urge to grab his hand; it wouldn't be taken too kindly this time round he's sure.

Lithe shoulders shrug under a hospital gown.

"You- wasting your day away here when you should be practicing. I would be cross if I was your coach," he says it in a usual petulant way, but Yuuri has begun to pick out tiny cues; a tiny twitch of the brow, or quiver of his lips, maybe even his nose crunching up a bit more.

He is talking to insecurity, "That's a reason why Viktor would be cross at me, not you. Which he's not, by the way. He's getting the next flight out, so drink up your juice and get that Vitamin C into you so we can go home."

"You can leave whenever you want. I don't want you here," Yuuri rolls his eyes, unscrewing the bottle in Yuri's weak hands and pushing it to his mouth. "Drink."

"-I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be. I'd have just have gone home. there's no magnetic force or court order forcing me- so do the maths, Yurio."

However, when he quirks a confused brow, Yuuri face-palms. "I care, Yuri! -I care very much and we were all really worried."

That shuts him up. Words instantly evaporating like puddles in the desert. Obeying, he gulps down his juice as he flusters uncomfortably.

 

"Mr Plisetsky," Doctor Big-Spectacles announces upon checking over his various bags of fluid. "I think you're free to go home. We're checking over a couple of your re-tests again, but everything should be in order."

Thank God for that, Yuri is starting to get sick of looking at the white ceiling, and the white walls, and the white sheets, and also the katsudon sitting at the side of his bed.

"Thanks," he says out of sheer instilled obligation. "I'll leave you to get ready," Dr. Swirly-Curls nods at them both, off on prowl for his next, weakened victim. "I'll send the nurse over to remove your IV line."

That's all very well and good, but Yuri is in the midst of discovering he isn't exactly dressed for the occasion. In an attempt to get Yuuri's attention, he glares at the older man, however despite noticing in his peripheral vision- this isn't anything out of the norm.

Smirking down at his iPhone, it's making Yuri gag. He's probably looking at his boyfriend's nudes or something, isn't that what gross couples do?

Rolling his eyes, and sighing, and wanting to cross his arms sullenly, (the IV drips prevent this) he coughs out a slight, "Hey." No response. Fingers type, type, type. Okay, it probably isn't nudes considering they've fallen out... so it's likely his mum.

"Yuuri," he drags out of the very pits of his vocal chords. "Oh- sorry!" he looks up, surprised.

"Phichit has been tagging me in all these silly videos," he explains, laughing breezily.

Okay, so he's two-timing Viktor with that Thai guy. Hm... Yuri would be okay with that, he supposes. Phichit seems almost tolerable. Viktor, on the other hand, is a complete asshole and Yuri wouldn't mind if he screwed himself sideways with a cactus. Not that he's bitter or anything.

"Yeah, that's cool and everything, but I'm half-naked," he hisses exasperatedly. It's humiliating that he has to talk about this with- with Yuuri of all people. But the man has seen him in a worse state than this, so dignity be damned. "Oh god, sorry I completely forgot!"

"Eh?"

Whipping a bag up out of nowhere, it glimmers like a beacon out at sea during the night, a shining diamond in the rubble.

"Yakov brought you clothes earlier from your flat, he said he had a spare key." He doesn't quite know if this makes him all blushing out of gratitude, or pure shame at the thought of Yakov being in his house- rooting around his drawers.

"Oh," he takes the bag out of Yuuri's hands and attempts to look through it. The drips in his arms catch, making shoots of pain tap dance up his arm, so he stops. He didn't particularly want to see anyway. Yuuri smiles at him, opening it up and pulling several pieces of clothing into view. Red chinos, a green t-shirt, his blue hoodie, purple underwear- what the hell is he, a fucking rainbow?

Even Yuuri laughs. "Fashionable," he quips with a wink. "You'll pull all the ladies in that," he adds and laughs far too hard at his own stupid joke, "Or dudes, I suppose. I don't know how you float."

Just when he thinks the guy can't get any more embarrassing, he reaches a new height. New High Score: Level 21 Achieved.

"Please shut up," he covers his eyes. "Okay, okay," he chuckles. "Will we wait until the nurse gets your drip off?" he holds up the mismatched attire. "We?" Yuri gives him a look, because no, no, no.

"You gonna be able to manage?" he says awkwardly. Not particularly happy about the idea himself, but he's one of those hands-on, kind types. It's secretly (so secretly, he doesn't quite realise) appreciated, but it's also quite sickening and makes his tummy want to hurl. "Do you actually process any of our conversations? I'd sooner die than have you help me put on that hideous outfit."

"Is it me or the outfit?" Yuuri's teeth all show in a little happy-go-lucky grin. "Little bit of both," Yuri snipes and tries not to think about how the irritating, Japanese man is getting right under his skin. He's like a flaming virus or something. "I see how it is," Yuuri sniffs, feigned offence making him push his nose in the air, "You just want one of those sexy nurses to do it," his eyes glitter with mischief. Or that doctor perhaps. "Oh Yuri, you sly dog!"

A splutter of laughter bursts out of Yuri, something so unfamiliar it probably surprises them both. Cheeks beginning to take on a cotton-candy tinge, as opposed to vanilla ice-cream, he bites down on his lip until it glows cherry-red, "You're spending too much time with Viktor. You are starting to sound like him."

Yuuri can't really argue with that. However at the thought of becoming more like that ridiculous man... well, he supposes the stress has made him crack.

A mere hour later, they are ready to go with the little bag of pharmacy items in hand, duffel bag in the other. Yuuri stands to attention. Yuri is shakily standing on his own two feet beside him.

He is dressed, ugly clothes mind you, but he managed it mostly himself, bar the t-shirt which wasn't too much of an issue. Yuuri shoved it roughly over his head, yanking his arms through the holes while Yuri cursed his very existence in every language he knew.

"God help your future kids," Yuri snaps, rubbing at his barely stable neck.

"I've had a dog," Yuuri looks dramatically into the distance, Yuri tries to spot what he's looking at until he realises he's just being a drama queen. "I've did my bit. Plus now I've half-adopted Makkachin so he is quite enough work for me." Fair enough, Yuri supposes. He's had a goldfish. It lasted less than a week. (RIP Bubbles Dec 25th 2005- Dec 29th 2005). A cat on the other hand, Yuri would put in the effort.

It's dark when they reach the main doors of the hospital. Cars come and go, headlights making the wet street look glossy. A gush of cold air hits their very bones and makes every cell vibrate, shivering for heat.

One of Yakov's servants- sorry, assistants brought Yuuri's car round earlier in the day. How... no one quite knows but it's a no questions asked kind of business.

He wants to go and visit his granddad before they leave, giving him a goodbye hug, but visitation hours are finished for the day on his ward.

"You wait here in the heat, I'll drive up to the front," Yuuri drops his bags and is light-jogging into the drizzle before Yuri can shout, "I can walk, you idiot!"

However, he's relieved when the car pulls up a mere minute later and Yuuri hops out to stuff his friend's stuff in the back. Frozen air sneaks under his warm clothes and Yuri stumbles into the front, little droplets catching in his fringe like bundles of flowers on a vine.

"Man, I'm cold," Yuuri fiddles with an ancient heater that eventually chokes to life. Sounding a little like an asthmatic chainsaw, it wheezes out petrol-smelling air into the small space around them.

It's just really occurred to him that Yuuri hasn't left his side from the moment he entered the hospital. His whole entire day, one that should have been spent practicing for the competition, has been wasted sitting beside him while he slept, or moaned, or called him names.

"You would be good at it- if you looked after Makkachin all the time," he says quietly, seemingly out of nowhere as he rests his head against the window. Yuuri is focusing on the road but he manages a quick glance, laughing. "He's ended up in the vets all day, I don't think I would be that good."

Forehead creased, Yuuri changes gears while the other Yuri chews on his lip. Why is it so hard to find the right words for the right feelings? Why can't he just say nice things when he wants to say nice things. "I mean, like, I-I've been in hospital and you've been... okay." Flushed, and started to sweat badly- he panics. Starting to catch on to his real meaning, joy splits Yuuri's face so quickly it's stupid. The man can be read like a book. "No. Shut up, forget I said anything."

Any previous crinkles smoothen out, his face looking like soft cotton. "I see. Well... I care about Makkachin a lot, so anything I have to do for him isn't a bother. I just want him to be okay because he makes me and Viktor happy," he shoots Yuri an obvious, well-meaning smile; it's the only way Yuuri thinks he can get through to the kid. Endless repetition, constantly remind him that he is cared for. Maybe if he hears it again, and again, it will get through to his thick skull and he can break out of this destructive isolation and actually talk to them.

"You hungry?" he asks, popping on the CD whizzing loudly inside his radio. A stale bottle of radioactive-looking energy drink rocks back and forth in between Yuri's aching feet. He shrugs. "I'm okay."

"Good, where do you recommend?"

Yuuri pulls up at some kind of 'all you can eat' buffet. A look of fear splatters across Yuri's face, one like paint and it's instantaneously washed off. Assuming it's the silly, teenage embarrassment at having to eat out with the older guy, Yuuri shrugs it away.

The restaurant is homely, orange-coloured lighting enclosed in little oil burners mark each silk, red-curtained window. They select a table for two, knives and forks polished and glistening up hungrily at them. Floaty, acoustic kind of music drifts from speakers and tummy-grumbling smells rouse them from their seats to the huge hatch.

Japanese native, Yuuri has no clue what he is piling onto his plate. But he is starving. Grease, salt, sugar, give him it all because it's been such a shitty day and his body is ready to chow down on whatever the hell this is.

Yuri looks a little less pleased, while Yuuri is busy half-orgasming, fork in hand, he looks at his plate with a touch of apprehension.

However, as soon as the first battered-bite touches his taste buds, explosions of sensory pleasure hit him and he can barely stop to chew.

"You're flying!" the dark-haired man grins proudly, face covered with the remnants of their meal as the boy in front is almost finished clearing his plate. Yuuri isn't even quite sure he's swallowing but after the agony his body has been through today, it's well needed. The teenager barely glances up at him, gulping down a half glass of water and getting back into it.

If it's one thing they both have in common, it's their love for really nice food.

First plate cleared, Yuri has stamina and goes up for a second. It's all you can eat after all. Sensing a challenge, Yuuri follows him up, sword in hand and matches him pelmen for pelmen. It's not exactly a competition, but it kind of is. Yuuri isn't going to be beaten in an eat-off by such a little guy.

Halfway through, Yuuri's tummy begins to ache. "Okay, I'm done," he laughs, there's no room left and he rubs his satisfied torso happily. Yuri, however, looks up unfazed, "Huh?" Apparently completely unaware of the vigorous competition that had been taking place.

Going on to finish, another glass of water downed, Yuuri is truly impressed as he scoffs down dessert. Where's he's putting it is anyone's guess, but Yuuri is insanely pleased to see him enjoy himself so thoroughly, giving his obviously deprived body some much needed substance.

When they leave, the older of the two pays. Yuri looks kind of guilty, but he hasn't got any money with him so it's not even like he can offer to go halfers. Rubbing his stomach, his face is kind of unreadable and he's strangely silent as they enter the car.

No biting comments, or poorly disguised attempts at being civil, Yuuri has to rely on the buzzing radio station speaking in a language he doesn't even understand. Five minutes later, it all becomes clear.

"Pull up," Yuri demands when they reach a service-station.

"We're nearly at your flat, can you hold it?" he can't quite be bothered having to navigate around the slither of cars coming in and out like yo-yos.

"Pull up now!" he demands angrily, sweat dotted along his brow and his eye-contact is non-existent.

Even in the darkened light, he makes out the outline of clear distress, hands clutching his tummy.

He doesn't even have a second to ask if he's okay, before Yuri bolts across the petrol-stained concrete into a disgusting public toilet. Leaving it a minute or two, Yuuri follows him over and knocks lightly. "Yuri, everything okay?"

All he hears are little muffled gags, kind of like sobs. It's incredibly strange. "Yurio?"

A minute or so more retching and Yuri's body gives in. Thankfully he only pukes a little but it sounds like he's in pretty intense pain. Apparently his sensitive stomach was a little bit so-not-ready for functioning at its job this particular night, but it managed to retain the majority of the meal. "Sorry, I thought you just had a really urgent bladder or something," Yuuri explains lightly when the zombie-like teenager stumbles out.

"I'm sorry," he says when they're back in the car.

His eyes are red rimmed, hair tangled and sweat-slicked to his forehead and his clothes look generally ruffled. "Stop saying sorry for things you can't help," Yuuri half scolds, giving his knee a little comforting squeeze. It should have surprised him the way Yuri accepted, and even went as far as leaning in to the contact. He goes all out, giving his dripping chin a wipe with his sleeve, before returning to his driving duties.

 

"Thanks for the lift," Yuri says, practically barrel-rolling into the street as they pull up outside his apartment building.

Bags practically forgotten in his haste, Yuuri calls after him. "Hang on- wait up!" the teenager looks exhausted at the continuous social interaction of the day. He just wants to bury his head under a pillow and fucking sleep for 17 hours straight. "I'll get the bags, but I need to know which room yours is?"

"I'll get them off you tomorrow," he shrugs him off, rain started to patter down lightly around them as they flounder in the street.

"Yurio, I'm not letting you stay the night by yourself. I know that there's no one at home with your granddad being in hospital," Yuuri feels like an insensitive twat but he doesn't mean it in an abrasive kind of way. "You've just been admitted from hospital, you nearly puked up your guts- it would be down right irresponsible if I left you like this."

A great dilemma weighs heavy on Yuri's shoulders. On one side, he doesn't quite want Yuuri entering his disgustingly messy flat, rooting around his personal stuff, and generally being even more of a mother-hen for a further who-knows-how-many hours.

Only the other hand... Yuri gets, well, (he barely admits this to himself) he gets a bit freaked in the flat by himself. Neighbours doors sound like serial killers... the wind sounds like serial killers...  the oil-heating sounds like serial killers, and yes- you guessed it, the creaks of his doors also sound like serial killers.

Usually his granddad fights them off. He might have a bad back but he carries a big stick and if Yuri hears any strange noises he can rely on his favourite person in the world to drag himself out of bed, usually after more than a good couple of pokes, and scour in behind the sofa and doors for potential intruders.

Any other sane person would probably tell him, at his age, he should catch himself on a bit. Go back to sleep. It's probably the wind. His granddad, however, wasn't any ol' person. After doing a general hunt, he would recheck all the locks. Windows, doors, behind the curtains and even down the back of the sofa.

It was surely to ease his anxiety, even Yuri knew this. It was all in his head. But it doesn't stop the shaking and kind-of-sort-of inability to breathe.

A memory sticks out in his head, one where he knew for sure someone had broken in. Panting in the hall, he could barely make it to his granddad's room before sinking to his knees in adrenaline-fueled fear. Sweat had made his pjs glue to his skin, he remembers it so vividly, like he had been drenched from head to toe. Almost out of pure instinct, his granddad finds him and scoops him up, and when he comes to, he's on the sofa; burrito-ed in a blanket. He had accepted the glass of sweetened milk with shaky hands.

"As long as I am alive, Любовь моя, no one is going to hurt you. I promise."

His granddad had said it so certainly.

There's nothing he doesn't know about the boy. Why he was the way he was- it all made such sense in retrospect. Yuri could tell him any little thing and he wouldn't have felt judged. He has this laugh that just makes everything feel okay.

When his granddad got sick, that support lessened. It's understandable he would paper over the cracks with excess bitterness and jagged edges to keep people out.  
Yuuri watches the boy, deep in thought.

"Come on," he slips an arm around his shoulder and steers him out of the rain. Numb, so intensely numb.

"As long as I am alive..."

Who will look after him when his granddad is gone?

"You're going to freeze," his elder urges him to move. "We've been in A&E once today, we don't need a repeat," If Yuuri doesn't stop being so- so infuriating, he's going to regret it. That jacket of his is going to become covered in messy, disgusting tears and snot; his heart spontaneously combusting in shock as the teenager instinctively clutches onto him for dear life.

It doesn't reach this stage, God bless, and they manage to collect up their bearing enough to drip water all the way up the carpeted stairs to reach Room 32. A cold hand stops Yuuri in his tracks, yanking on his arm and nodding at the correct door.

Fumbling with his key, silently, Yuri unlocks the door and steps over the various piles of crap to go into one of the bedrooms at the other side. Confused, Yuuri enters too and decides, you know what, he wouldn't mind a bit of light.

Wow... he regrets that decision. The room is an actual, fucking tip. Pardon his French, and general rudeness, but whoa. Only a bomb could cause so much destruction. Endless piles of clothes, whether washed or not he doesn't know, litter the floor.

Packages upon packages of empty food wrappers give the illusion of being knee-deep in a recycling skip. It's actually quite shocking how many coloured pieces of papers, half-eaten food, and bottles, one petit human can physically expel into the proximity. How Yakov found even that terrible outfit, is a downright mystery.

Stepping over it all, he checks up on Yuri and finds him in what he assumes is his granddad's bedroom. He doesn't question it.

Tearing the jacket lightly off the teen, he pulls up the duvet and sets the lamp at the dimmest setting. "Don't touch my stuff," he mumbles, nose pressed against the pillow as silent tears leak into the soft cotton.

"It's pretty hard not to," Yuuri says and lets him get some sleep, tiptoeing out and closing the door over.

When he re-enters the bedroom, the shock hits him all over again. It's a gift that just keeps giving. A Christmas Miracle of pure destruction. Grabbing a roll of plastic black bags, Yuuri is armed like Santa Claus himself. Minus the toys and general joy, he swings a bag of rubbish over his shoulder and gives the gift of antibacterial soap to the variety of ominous stains on the floor. You're welcome, he whispers as the 99.9% bacteria killing spray does its job. Like the little elves in The Elves and The Shoemaker, he tucks in.

He is careful not to touch anything that looks in anyway personal. Only rubbish, clothes and food-products are within his limits. That way he can actually keep his head for the short programme and Yuri can also keep his knuckle bones in tact.

When he's finally finished, it's well after 2am, but at least he can now see the floor.  
Perhaps this wasn't the best time or place to be doing a spring clean but there's literally a limit of mess as to which Yuuri can stand. This flat exceeds every sane human's limits multiplied. However, at least when he collapses down into the sofa, thoughts of the day aren't running around and around in his head to torment him.

Instead, he promptly passes out. Shoes, jacket, and rubber gloves still on.

Yuri stirs sometime in between climbing into bed and his Japanese stalker passing out on his sofa. Bangs of cupboards, ruffles of plastic bags, doors creak and the oil heating groans. God, the teenager should be panicking- this could be a whole hoard of serial killers on the hunt. A bang comes through the little crack of the door and the residual, "Ouch!" makes him snort into the duvet with laughter. Strangely enough, he doesn't feel afraid.

Why, he doesn't know, but he listens to Yuuri scuttling about, stubbing his limbs on various furniture parts until eventually he too drifts off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clutches chest*
> 
> i should probably feel guilty for torturing my poor son yurio.
> 
> however... thank you so much for reading and sticking with me!! i would love if you could drop me some of your thoughts/opinions/whatever!!
> 
> :)x


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy wednesday!!! *squeals*  
> I haven't watched the latest episode yet so I am buzzing to die of emotion.
> 
> (brb: dying tbh) 
> 
> but i had to get this out! i am so ready to get my teeth into the plot *bares teeth*
> 
> also guys the support i have gotten back is overwhelming. never have i smiled so much as i have reading your words. it means the world to me and the feedback has given me so much inspiration and motivation.
> 
> thank you awesome humans!!! :)x

Death hits him hard and fast, mouth sucking in air like a drowining man, Yuri bolts up in the sweat-sticky bed. Cold air hits his bare arms making his tiny hair-shoulders stand to attention.

Crispy sunlight shines through the ancient curtains, as fresh and glowing as lemon cleaning-spray. Speaking of which, the room fucking reeks of it.

"Good morning!" Yuuri beams suddenly at the door of the bedroom, and Yuri totally does not leap about a mile out of bed. "I thought I heard you stir."

"Why the fuck are you still here?" he groans, teeth clinking painfully against eachother as they clash. Looking ever so slightly like a grumpy, tired cat, Yuri rubs his eyes.

"For your positively pleasant personality, of course," Yuuri snickers. God... Douche-Bag Alert, much? "I've made you breakfast, sit up and get it into you."

Pulling his duvet up defensively, he steers his head like an opposing ship. "I don't want it." Perhaps he is being childish, but frankly he couldn't actually give less of a shit.

"Well you have to take your isotonic solution and meds anyway, so unless you fancy it coming straight back up again- dig in," Yuuri smiles like he knows damn rightly he has the teen at a checkmate. Snatching the tray over, he shoves the concotion of pastries, orange juice, fruit and meat down his throat.

"How are you feeling?" Yuuri pulls his legs up to fold under himself. Stop making yourself so fucking comfortable, Yuri wants to shout. This is a Plisetsky zone only, no Katsuki's allowed.

However, he just shrugs indifferently. "What's the pain like today?" Yuuri tries again. His eyebrows are a fluffy crease of concern and purple bruise-like marks hang under tired eyes. "I'm fine," Yuri coughs out as the guilt slowly sets in, a sickly plague over his skin.

Yuuri lets out a little sigh, "I'm glad," and whether in disbelief of relief neither of the two really know. "You really had us worried yesterday."

Looking to the side, the floor, the blanket- nothing removes the two glittery eyes fixed like a tombstone on him. "You shouldn't have been," he mutters sullenly but Yuuri pays no heed. He never does, Yuri notes, and chucks back the duvet in a huff.

 

Apparently burgulars broke into his house last night and stole the layout of his flat. It's the only logical answer, Yuri thinks, because surely this isn't normal. What kind of crazy person cleans your house while you sleep?

This kind, he looks over at the escaped-psychopath currently grinning sheepishly with a hand scratching his neck. "Okay, so don't freak-" Yuuri starts and the only reaction the teenager knows is to freak, so he does it anyway. "Don't freak? What the fuck have you done to my flat? Have you been looking in my stuff?"

"I would never do something to invade your privacy!" Yuuri defends, he looks a bit put out by the suggestion. As if that hasn't been what he's been doing all along. "I just tidied up the rubbish and cleaned a little."

Lies, lies, lies. Yuri ruffles around in drawers skitishly, shuffling about things that aren't even his but his granddad's. Just to look like he's- uh, checking. Just to be sure. "Hm," he sniffs when enough sheets have been tossed, "Okay. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Yuuri smiles. "Do you need anything before I head over to the rink? Pain relief? Food?"

Hang on. Yuri's neck almost snaps upon rapid rotation, his hair whipping his innocent cheeks. "What?" he narrows steady eyes. Is this katsudon suggesting what he thinks he's suggesting? "Tomorrow is the short programme, do you actually think I'm taking the day off?"

"Yuri, I-" he fumbles dumbly with his words, like some sort of imbecile. "I don't think you should. N-Not that you can't or anything. But you're just out of hospital, your body isn't cut out for this kind of overwork."

"You don't have a clue what my body is or isn't capable of," he growls out, tired cat turning to snarling tiger; he growls above a quivering Yuuri and bares sharp teeth. "I'm not falling for it."

"Falling-" Yuuri is cut off by a weakened hand around the collar of his shirt, shoving him lightly into the counter. "I'll die before I let you rob me of my win."

So with that, he storms off to get dressed and Yuuri promises never to secretly clean a friend's flat again. Obviously selfless kindness only leads to suspicion.

 

"Good morning, love, I had the most wonderful dream about you on the plane-" Viktor sings into the stuffy atmosphere of the car. "You're on loudspeaker," Yuuri says back in an equally sing-song voice back, knowing this couldn't be a good idea. Yuri just swallows in an attempt to keep his breakfast down.

"Oh! Morning Yuri! I hope you're feeling much better," Yuri scoffs and snarls at the passenger seat window. A heat builds up in his body, pure unabashed rage that draws sweat to the surface of his skin, only to evaporated off again by the increasing temperature. "Fuck off," he snaps in Russian and Viktor laughs happily. Disgusting fool.

"I can't wait to see how much my two favourite skaters have improved from the last time I've seen you," he sounds horrendously upbeat for this time of the day and his words make Yuri's blood boil. One of Viktor's favourite skaters? Ha. He's heard better jokes in a fucking Christmas cracker.

"I'll be up to your standards," Yuri bites sarcastically and squeezes his knees with white-knuckled hands. How dare Viktor even speak of his progress when he himself gave up like the pathetic loser he is. "I should hope so, Yurio, what with all the excessive practice you have been putting in."

Green eyes widen and shoot to Yuuri- a strange combination of shock, hurt, and... betrayal.

So this was how it was. Yuuri leeching all the information he can out of him for Viktor, twisting it all up to embarrass him. Swirly concotions of angry hurt sting at his tummy and mingle with all the organs in his body. Fuck them.

"I've been working the same as everyone else," he says past a fucking lump in his throat. Whether it's because Viktor knows exactly how to get under his skin, or the fact that Yuuri has blabbed all his business to his boyfriend, who knows.

"I know that's not true," he replies in a softer tone, this time in Russian to give them some degree of privacy while Yuuri wonders if you can die via stewing in your own cold sweat. "Hang up," Yuri demands and Yuuri literally thinks he's going to end up swerving into a post.

"Please calm down, Yurochka," he pleads in that grossly-fake, dramatic tone he tends to take on. "Don't call me that!" Yuri half yells, jolting as Yuuri panic-swerves to avoid a cat. "Stop yelling!" Viktor argues back just as petty and childish, "You are going to make Yuuri crash!"

"Oh my God, shut up!" Yuuri cries in between their mixture of English and Russian yelling. He slams on the breaks at a traffic light and they bounce from their seats, Yuri slamming both palms on the dashboard as Viktor's voice tumbles into the takeaway-littered abiss below.

"I swear if you two don't be quiet I'm not moving from here!" Yuuri pants, chest heaving from the shouting and his cheeks glow a hazy red. "It's his fault!" is yelled back at him in sync; one angry teen spitting saliva into his face and a muffled speaker from beyond the beyond (or rather his feet). Blaring horns screech behind them like banshees.

"Yuuri!" the teenager whines, worriedly glancing back and forth between the car behind him and the green-glowing traffic light. "No," Yuuri tries for stern, shooting daggers at the blonde beside him.

"You two are going to have to get on," he snaps looking like he has been shook, glasses half askew and hair ruffled. This is the last place on Earth to start one of Yuuri's sickening inspirational lectures. "I don't have to get on with anyone," Yuri snaps.

"-I do get on with Yurio! I love him very much!" Viktor pipes up and funnily enough he is audible from inside a carton. Nothing riles Yuri up more than having bullshit spewed at him. "Like fuck you do!" his eyes are ablaze and incredulous, like the very notion offends the deepest of his core values.

"Look, Yurio, I know you are hurting over everything that's-" he begins and by the sound of the angry mob behind him, Yuuri has no choice but to slam his foot on the accelerator. "You have no right to talk about my granddad, you waste of space," Yuri shouts over the squeal of tyres and honks. He is speaking Russian but even the native Japanese man can make out a word or two.

"Now is not the time to-" he stutters, tension clogging up his very pores.

"But you can't take your anger out on other people and especially not yourself," Yuri glares down at the phone and his cheeks are burning, his eyes looking like they're about to guzzle over like a stream.

With one anger fueled punch to the dashboard at his other side, Yuuri reaches over and grabs the iPhone. A dangerous move but he manages to grab it and Yuri's injured hand while keeping his other on the steering wheel.

"Stop," he begs, his eyes have to stay on the road but he holds the teenager's fist tightly.

He tries to pull away, Viktor having been safely hung up on, but to no avail. "Yurio, just take a couple of deep breaths in," he says, promising God he will never allow Viktor and Yuri to occupy the same vicinity again.

"Why did you tell him?" he bites out but it comes with a side of wet-sniffing. A desperate attempt at staving off tears but Yuuri is no idiot, and he is starting to feel just a little bit terrible.

"I'm sorry, I- I was just so worried and I didn't know who else to talk to," he tries but it's no use, Yuri pulls away his fist with such force he bangs his elbow against the seat.

"Yeah right," he manages to make out behind the fabric muffling his mouth and the intensely gritted teeth. "You just rang him up to have a good ol' laugh at me."

"Don't be ridiculous," Yuuri feels all of his efforts crumble around him. A shaky foundation of trust, or friendship- demolished into smithereens at his feet.

Worst car journey of 2016, they pull up at the rink and as Yuri goes to flee, Yuuri pushes the lock button and grabs his arm lightly.

"I would never laugh at you," he stares straight into green eyes that have started to spurt. "Time after time, I tell you that I care and yet you still don't believe me."

"Just leave me alone!" he chokes and shoves his wet sleeve further into his mouth.

Little marks dot his fingers, extending to his knuckles. Rubbed raw and almost bleeding, Yuuri frowns in confusion but he doesn't get a chance to question him as Yakov thumps on the car window.

"If you two are finished having a little heart to heart can we get straight into practice,"

 

Vigorous training and a weakened body don't mix. Yuri is landing, but just about, and his form is barely mediocre. The other Yuuri isn't faring much better however. Any old sequences are mostly a breeze but they quake under distraction and nerves, and the new ones are under practiced so they flop like dead fish on the port.

"Take a break!" Yakov is at the end of his tether, keeping his face sturdy when Yuri disappears to the changing room. "Is he okay?" he quietly asks a heaving Yuuri, doubled over and sweating onto the edge of the ice.

"No," he huffs and puffs. "He shouldn't be here."

Yakov eyes him warily from behind the barrier. "If you keep up this poor performance, neither should you. It's like coaching a pair of two-left-footed frogs. Nothing short of a miracle will get you to the Grand Prix," he isn't trying to be rude per se, it just tends to happen.

Yuuri stares at his back as he leaves for a smoke. Things just keep getting better and better.

 

Fluids and sugar, Yuuri is thirsting for it as he strides towards the vending machine for some well-needed substance. His angry teenage friend is nowhere to be found so he has let him be.

"Hey, you!"

Yuuri feels his heart jerk at the sound of such a familiar voice. Spinning slowly, almost like clockwork he meets a pair of blue eyes and a soppy-looking smile.

"Viktor!" he gasps, machine forgotten as he throws himself like a ragdoll into strong, welcoming arms. "I've missed you like another limb," Viktor laughs and pulls him flush against his own body.

Oh thank all of the stars in heaven above, and every last mystical God or being that may exist. Yuuri thinks he might have just become religious as his nose buries into a cologne-drenched jacket and the scent of home. Never before has he known what it's like to miss someone so badly- his homesickness was just different. This has felt like a feverish, whole body ache; his bones now feeling malleable and warm.

"I'm sorry about this morning," he hushes Yuuri's shoulder, greedy fingers combing back and forth through his sweaty hair. Viktor has him squeezed so tightly he feels restrained and the safety turns his lead-filled chest into fluffy clouds.

"Don't worry about it," Yuuri grasps at his slippery jacket, a penguin belly-sliding on the ice and he wonders how he ever let this ridiculous man leave him.

"Do I get a kiss or are you still furious at me?" one long, pianist finger caresses from his chin, along his jaw, to his ear. It's a seductive movement that feels much to intimate for anywhere but under the sheets.

"Maybe later," Yuuri is half-joking but suddenly his back is against the glowing lights of the vending machine, blocking the colours out like a moon. "I'm not that patient, love," he traces those same fingers around the damp outline of his lips.

A couple of skaters pass and shoot them strange looks as Yuuri flushes so bad he could die. Viktor just revels smugly in his flustered expression.

"Let me show you quite how much I've missed you," he lets cold fingers slide up his heated back making Yuuri jolt. Then the next thing he knows lips are molding like sponge cake around his own and the sweet taste his addicting, he chases it every time as he slides his tongue over the Russian's, sucking lightly on his plump lower lip.

"Viktor," he breathes, borderline embarrassed but too desperate to push him away.

"I love you," Viktor holds his face in the cup of his big hands. His eyes are starry skies, his smile the sun itself. It's disgustingly cheesy but it feels like it's true. Yuuri is just a bit of debris in his magnetic orbit. "I love you too," it isn't just an automatic response- he feels every word of it in every single ventricle, each atrium, the syllables pulsing through him.

Hands meet somewhere in the mesh of their collided chests and lips seal the deal, two pining idiots together at last.

"Come on- I'll help you wash up!" Viktor laughs, tugging him towards the changing room in a fit of youthful laughter. Wait- what? Yuuri is lucky he isn't wearing a hat or he would have to grab it and run.

"Have you actually gone mad?" Yuuri squeaks as he's shoved through the door. Their short break doesn't allow for the length of time Viktor's suggesting and he's pretty sure this goes against Health & Safety.

"Get a fucking room," Yuri just so happens to be shoving his clothes into his locker, slamming it with an abrasive bang. Viktor's hand on his boyfriend's jacket loosens and the man himself falters from where he's welded into the wall.

"Yurio!" Viktor looks up, eyes wide and Yuuri is dropped like a hot potato.

The poor, poor teenager doesn't get the chance to make his likely very rapid escape, before this terrifying Russian man swoops towards him. Oh fuck, oh shit, Yuuri blinks in slow motion. This can't be happening.

Viktor crouches down and- yes, scoops the petite blonde up into a goddamn hug. A disgusted, literal look of horror breaks out on his face like a rash. It looks like he's being strangled as he fights it, when it reality Viktor is just holding him tightly.

"What the fuck are you doing, you creep!?" Yuri screams, thumping at his chest while Yuuri wonders if he should break up this forced hug. "I'm sorry about earlier, Yurio. I care about you and it hurts me to see you like this."

Selfish bastard, Yuri wants to wrap his own hands around the asshole's throat. "Let go of me!" he punches hard enough to leave bruises but Viktor snuggles deeper, rocking him side to side. "All you need is a good hug, aren't I correct?" he pats his head like a feisy cat. "Yuuri should have done this from the very start."

Oh no, RIP Katsuki Yuuri. Death by Cringe-Attack. His suffering was slow and immense but he's in a better place now.

"I swear to fuck, let go of me or I'll jam your skates up your fucking-" Viktor releases him and the teenager is bright red, panting like he has just been choking. "Do you forgive me?" he pouts, only serving to taunt Yuri even further.

Whatever he spits in Russian causes even Viktor to look surprised. "You don't mean that," the elder shakes his head, trying to keep his cool and collected persona. A manic smile teases at Yuri's lips, his eyes cold and spiteful.

"Don't I?" he laughs harshly. "Katsudon here is a fucking loser but even he is too good for a piece of shit like you."

Ouch, everyone in Moscow hears the crack in Viktor's ego. "Yuri!" the older skater attempts to scold but Viktor smiles sadly and waves him off. "No, it's okay. I know Yuuri is too good for me. He is caring and kind, all the things that are good about a person."

The trembling anger in every cell of Yuri's body tapers off a bit, the resolve in his eyes diminishing. "But pointing this out to hurt me isn't going to make you feel any better," Viktor has swallowed back his own hurt and very maturely been the adult in the situation. Pride wells up in his boyfriend but it's short-lived.

"Really?" Yuri glares at him, and no one would blame Viktor for thinking the kid actually despises him. "Because seeing your pitiful face makes me feel pretty good."

"Yeah?" Viktor grabs his chin, smushing his cheeks together in one fierce grab. Yuuri leaps like Superman to the rescue but Viktor holds him back. "You don't look pretty good to me, Yurochka," he remarks sarcastically, "No matter what kind of silly game you play I always see right through you."

Oh my God, Yuuri covers his face with his hands. Is it possible to ship his boyfriend back to Japan? Or perhaps ask his mother if she fancies adopting an angry fifteen year old.

"You know nothing," Yuri kicks him hard and they scuffle like the idiots they are while Yuuri tries to drag them off each other. The first sniff really sets in his protective instincts and he makes a grab at Viktor's silver locks.

"Ouch!" Viktor yelps as he tumbles.

"Yuri?" he slaps his hand away, breathing short puffs into his sleeve. A sudden river of tears begin trickling down pallid cheeks and the Japanese man hates how easily his heart melts.

"Oh come here, you headcase," he pulls the teenager to his chest in an entirely more pleasant way than Viktor had. Speaking of, he's looking up from where he had splatted on his ass on the ground- disgruntled and irritated. "I didn't even touch him!" he snaps defensively.

Yuuri shoots him a look of understanding over the blonde's shoulder as he hushes him. Strangely enough, Yuri just sinks into the embrace, sniffling tears into Yuuri's jacket.

He is mentally drained from it all, and deep down the thought of stealing Viktor's boyfriend sends all kinds of smug through his veins. As pathetic as he feels, seeing the petty jealousy on Viktor's face makes the gross tears ease ever so slightly.

The door of the changing room opens and Yakov is met with a Viktor Nikiforov sprawled across the floor, enraged and his two students, (who hate eachother on every day ending in 'y') engaged in a comforting embrace.

Man. Yakov is getting too old for this shit.

 

After being pretty much put on a timeout, Viktor folds his arms and watches Yuuri flail on the ice. Both of them, they are in poor form and it's showing in every move.

Standing to give advice- before he even has his mouth open, Yakov points to the bench and yells, "Sit!". He usually doesn't obey. But this time he does.

This was not how he expected his passionate reunion with his boyfriend to go.

"Plisetsky! Your arms are like dead weights by your side- you aren't lugging around bags of flour in your skates!" his wide mouth splutters out the words and the two keep dancing like exhausted puppets on his string.

He didn't actually mean to cause such bother, but from experience the best way to get what you want from Yuri is to rile him. Being soft and gentle, it won't work in his... you know, educated opinion. The kid needs to be stirred so much he bubbles over at the edges and hopefully all of the anger and hurt and fear just spills out.

Yuuri will give him a clip round the ear for it but hopefully he will understand.

Looking up as his boyfriend flubs a relatively simple quad, he sighs. Grand Prix's don't stop for any kind of personal problems, the world keeps turning despite the pain enclosed in it. It's not abrasive if it's the truth, he supposes.

At least that's what he keeps telling himself.

 

Yuuri 1 and Yuri 2 meet Viktor outside. Not on purpose, mind you. He is leaning cross-legged and arms-folded against Yuuri's rented car with his bags at his feet.

"I'll walk," Yuri says at once, but the dark-haired man grabs him by the scruff of his neck and gently plops him inside the rusty, scratched vehicle.

"Am I allowed a lift home with my boyfriend?" Viktor pretends to sound put-out but Yuuri knows he's just teasing. He's seen the way Viktor has made heart eyes at him all day. Even though his practice was a disgrace and he's probably fucked up any chance at getting to the Grand Prix.

"I suppose you may," he leans up on tiptoes to kiss Viktor softly. Little tingles stretch from ear to ear. "Get in the back, Yurio called shotgun."

The gangly man tumbles into the backseat in a mixture of limbs and a teenager's protests, it's survival of the fittest between him and the colony of duffel bags. "Fuck," he manages to get his belt around as the little car splutters away.

"Where are we going?" Yuri frowns at his older rival, irked and drained dry. "To my hotel, I am keeping an eye on you, so I know you aren't tiring yourself out before the competition," Yuuri is attempting to sound diplomatic but he just sounds nervous.

"Are you kidding with me?" he squeezes the energy drink in his hand until the jagged tin points out like knives. Viktor's eyebrows are raised but he is fighting a smug amusement.

"I'm not a fucking child!" he explodes, his face feeling hot with humiliation. No matter how fucking nice Yuuri is, to treat him like- like this! In front of Viktor of all people... It is unforgiveable. "You aren't nearly looking after yourself as well as you should. It's only for tonight so I know you aren't on any late night runs. I- It was Yakov's idea!"

A lie of course. But not even Yuri is going to confront a nicotine-starved Yakov.

"Yeah, so what? I'm supposed to lie there while you two just fuck each other?" Yuri's tone bites at their surprised ears. Blood sweeping from the teenager's cheeks to Yuuri's. "Don't be stupid."

"We have joining rooms," Viktor pipes up and Yuuri flips him off, the other Yuri choking on his own spit.

Please kill me, Yuri begs whatever God is listening as the hideous Russian cackles like a hyena; Yuuri suddenly looking like barrel-rolling into the street sounds incredibly appealing.

 

When they get to the room, Yuri decides if he is going to be treated as such, he may as well live up to his label. So he kicks at the furniture, shoves piles of clothes onto the floor and slams the ensuite bathroom door hard when he enters.

Who said there was no such thing as teenage meltdowns?

"Come out for some food!" Viktor knocks on the door an hour or so later, takeout in hand. He didn't fucking ask to adopt Yuuri's strays when he became entangled with the Japanese man. "Now!"

Stern and solid, Yuuri remarks in his head from where he's sprawled across the bed. A huge contrast to his usual goofiness. Plus he's determined; Yuuri himself having gave up his soft, sweet-talking twenty minutes previous.

Bang, bang, bang. Viktor thumps impatiently before speaking in Russian. One, two, three minutes. The handle turns like a rusty clockhand. A flushed, exhausted teen glares at him and throws himself down beside the small coffee table.

Funnily enough, Viktor gives his back a pleased smile and washes it away as he plops the paper bag down in front of him.

"Don't forget your medication and solution," Yuuri voices, making his way to peel mushy muscles from their engravement on the mattress. "Stay there love," Viktor touches his chest lightly to hold him down, "Where did you put it and I'll go and get it."

Yuri rolls his eyes. These fuckers are putting him off his solid grease.

"Side of my bag, thanks," and then there's a big slurp of a kiss that sounds like Viktor's trying to literally drink the fluid from the man's mouth.

Viktor plants the collection of medications in front of him, as to which he pointedly ignores until Viktor slides across a box with casual fingertips.

"What's that?" he squints, mouth full.

The platinum guy shrugs dramatically, a feigned look of innocence plastered un-fittingly over his face. A sickening mask that both riles and intrigues the youth. It's probably a box of posionous spiders, or a prank that will squirt water in his face when he opens it.

Snapping it over, his green lazers bore holes of death into the cardboard before he hastily rips it open. White lid falling away to reveal a tiger-print Nintendo console. One of those new, portable types- with built in games and the internet.

It's like the fucking Da Vinci Code is in his hands, he can't allow his mind to comprehend the gift.

"Yuuri says when he was fifteen he loved video games. But I know you aren't him- although this model looks pretty cool and the lady in the store says you can download all kinds of apps," Viktor smiles a little tiny sparkly one, like it's nothing- and behind him his boyfriend dies of a heart attack.

He takes away the packaging while Yuri stares dumbly, turning a little pink as his heart flutters weakly. When his enemy (idol) has his back turned, he does the only thing he knows how to- and runs.

Nintendo and food in hand, he bolts straight to his ajoining room. The door slams and Yuuri and Viktor are left blinking in shock.

Later, in between breathy pants and sweat-tinged kisses, Viktor slaps his hand gently over Yuuri's mouth. His body is planked above the other, relying on pure core strength alone as he pins his boyfriend into the mattress.

"Shhhh, do you hear that?" Viktor hushes his quiet moans as he plants kisses along the sensitive curve of his neck. Yuuri's body recoils and twitches as a swarm of goosebumps break out along his naked limbs.

In between the thin walls, the iconic Super Mario Bros theme tune beeps out from a mysterious source. Barely able to snuffle out snorts of laughter, Yuuri bites Viktor's shoulder as the other snickers into his neck.

Despite the skull-crushing pressure in between his shoulder blades, the mind-numbing anxiety, the fear in every quaking synapse; Yuuri feels his breath release tension in one smooth, fluid movement.

His boyfriend is in his arms. Yuri is playing video games. Fight or flight mode turned off, he lets his body relax. His short programme is tomorrow and whatever will be, will be.

An unusual perspective for the usually unconsolable Yuuri, but after seeing his friend looking so frail and dead to the world... he thinks he would take a humilating failure over that spine-pricking terror any day.

Even if that makes him a weak, poor excuse of a competitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sniffles* when your trash son returns and stirs shit but he's really a cinnamon roll on the inside.
> 
> (pls send your prayers to yuri plisetsky)
> 
> thank you so much for sticking with me also!! i would love to hear your thoughts/opinions/etc!! :)x


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!
> 
> *collapses*
> 
> i went on a wild, night writing spree and produced this. *sweats nervously*
> 
> there may be trigger warnings needed for sensitive subjects. if you feel you want to avoid any kind of theme, please comment in the previous chapter even, and I can specify exactly what might be upsetting.
> 
> anywho....*waves arms* :)x

Explosions are captivating, aren't they?

Beautiful eruptions of destructive spectrums; red-sheened rain, orange-tinged ash, bright, blinding-white light. Even though they seize the atmosphere and cast fear and despair among every square inch, they are obsenely breath-taking.

On the ice, one such disaster has occured. A complete epidemic, a heart-bashing flurry of explosion after explosion. Yuuri stands at the sidelines with his sweaty hands flush on the barrier. "Davai!" he had shouted, Viktor cheering stupidly at his side. It was like throwing toothpicks at a seventy-foot, quaking beast.

At first, he appears to be doing well. But Yuuri's well trained eyes spot the tremble of his skate as he lands, the deeper pinch of skin above his nose- alarm bells ring eerily in the distance.

Among the crowd, the sea of fans sway like the waves themselves. Never before has Yuuri seen such cute, yet terrifying squeals of affection. For someone so truly alone that it's frightening, Yuri has racked up an immense army of die-hard disciples. Despite their screams of, "Totally cute!" and "Slay that ice, Yuratchka!" Yuuri knows they march behind the teenager with every sweep of the rink.

A fizzing of toxic gas has begun, sparks hitting each corner of the arena. Yuri has his first visible stumble, the crowd deflating and the judges scribble in their clipboards.

Panic wraps spindle-like fingers around each of Yuuri ribs, massaging the pulsing organ encased until it's beating wildly like a trapped butterfly. "You can do it!" he screams, oblivious to the perplexed people around him. In this moment, Yuri's programme is more important than any other; even his own, already-skated and weakly-scored routine.

Bony knees have started to shake, Yuri is failing to look fluid as he moves in desperation. The usually agile teenager is straining and struggling. When he jumps, rather than a steeled mask of determination, genuine fear grasps at his raised eyebrows, biting down on a trembling lip.

"Shit," Yuuri has grasped this damn barrier so tight it's demolishing blood cells, hands going practically numb. As expected, when he lands- well, he doesn't. Yuri splatters in a mess of self-preserving limbs, palms turning frostbit and skates squealing.

"Oh," the crowd hum in unison, the judges exchanging looks but Yuri is a warrior and is up in an instant. Pushing onwards as the music picks up, face reddened as fatigue hits prematurely. When his hands outstretch as he swirls, instead of conductive compasses that steer his form, they shake tremendously and he is grappling at the air.

Each step sequence is like tip-toeing over hot coals, his thighs and calves tense yet almost jelly-like. The brewing fire has started, cackling and licking at the ice below his frantic feet.

By now, it's obvious there is something so very wrong. Yuri Plisetsky is a safe bet to sweep in and snatch the title from his senior, Viktor, keeping the gold in Russia.

Yet now, as he fights on towards his combination, the crowd cannot look away in what their gut tells them is a shoe-in for disaster.

"Huh?" Yakov feels his pocket buzz; this isn't a time for external information. But as the buzz persists like a fucking wasp, he presses a button and his earpiece explodes to life.

Yuuri watches as the teenager forces his body into a quad that zaps every reserve of energy from within. Failing to complete the combination, he crumbles like a damp cookie into a pile on the ice and the music dances off without him. He is panting, practically drowing as his lungs seize up.

I shouldn't have let him do it, Yuuri thinks, watching with a lump in his throat as Yuri puts his hands on bruised knees and manages to stand. Pushing off as he bleeds sweat down his face, it's making his already shimmering costume glisten even more.

"I- I can't. He is in the middle of a programme-" Yakov is muttering at his side while Viktor bounces anxiously on the balls of his feet. The crowd are in a state of unease as Agape blares spine-tinglingly across the arena yet the skater is a blowing breeze on the ice.

For all the abuse he would receive, Yuuri wants nothing more than to jump the barrier and scoop his friend up in his arms. Why has nobody stopped this torturous display and forced the teen to at least fucking breathe.

"Critical?" Yakov hisses in oxygen like it's laced with nicotine and tar. This catches Yuuri and Viktor's ears, their heads rotating in sync like something out of a dance routine. "Oh no," Yuuri utters numbly, his boyfriend's clammy hand slipping into his own.

Inches of water are building around Yuri's ankles, tripping him up as the flames continue. Why is he keeping up this humiliating display? Why does he refuse to lie down and accept his defeat? Even he doesn't know as he dives back in, meeting his squad's collective gaze across the rink.

How he knows is unclear, but he just does. As soon as he looks at that katsudon's watery, pity-filled eyes... Granddad. His chest aches like a knife has just parted the surrounding flesh. Ouch, he holds it as he glides, a spinning-top of white and rainbow diamontes.

Give up, his body pleads. Stop, please, it hurts. There's a fucking painful rock in his throat that's cutting off his breathing. 

Six years old, he fell and cut his knee and the blood leaked down to his socks, his granddad wiped it with antibacterial wipes. Seven, a kid in his class punched him in the arm and his granddad phoned the school and got the bully in trouble. Eight, his granddad walked in on him pinned against the wall with a broken bottle pointed at his throat. His own drunken mother leaving purple finger-marks in his quivering arms.

Black spots cloud his vision, he blinks rapidly to ward them off but it's no use. His granddad is going to die and there's nothing he can do. No, God, please- I am begging you. His eyes shut close and Agape vibrates in every one of his weary bones.

Pure, unconditional love. His granddad can be an embarrassing idiot at times, and he loves horrendous music that makes Yuri's ears bleed at ungodly times of the morning.  
They argue a little bit, from time to time. Yuri can't leave out the bins, he's practicing his lunges. No, he won't pick up his washing- what is he? A servant?

Burned trays, sticky mixing bowls, Yuri could live without cleaning about a million sets weekly as his granddad experiments. How he always reads the news loudly to himself in Russian, smoking on a now occasionally cheeky cigar. Ash clinging to the curtains and the walls, and Yuri's secondhand lungs.

Arms move like they were born to do only this. It's instinct, muscle memory rooted right into the very relay neurones connecting every fizzing synapse. It's okay if he's crying a little, because the only person who will see is his granddad.

Tears are running down Yuuri's eyes shamelessly as an elusive force consumes the blonde skater. Fatigue, exhaustion, crippling pain. They all melt into a cocktail of dying flames on the sloshing ice. Complete grief is left in their wake, that and a silent demon that steers his sliding limbs like a boat.

Why can't he breathe? Yuri wonders if he has died instead. A thundering of a frantic pulse starts up; strangely enough he would be okay with that. If it meant his granddad could stick around and drive in his little car, healthy and laughing without needing to cough blood into tissues. He thinks he would do anything for that.

The climax of the music penetrates through the web of his skin. He feels it all over. Now is when the gushes of adrenaline kick in but he feels none of it and the crowd roars in delight as he lands perfectly slick, eyes calmly closed as water leaks onto pallid cheeks.

"Yurio, Davai!" Yuuri is shouting himself hoarse on the other side. Division is clear, everyone is moving in a swarm of meshing colours and expressions but Yuri feels cut off and- and... alone.

Maybe this is how his granddad felt. Dying all by himself while Yuri was too busy trying to run his body into an early grave. Oh no, he slips out of his trance as he completes his final spin, crouched down low, a hand is shoved against his mouth. I-I'm sorry Granddad, I didn't- I should have been there. His thoughts are detached and when he should have finished his comeback in a graceful raise, arms stretched to touch the stars, he crumples up onto his knees.

Tension that has been previously building bubbles over. Shame be gone. Consciousness be gone. Tears upon tears upon tears cast a flood all the way down his neck. He curls up, pulling at his hair as he chokes out stomach-clenching sobs into his fists.

"Yuuri, wait!" Viktor shouts, the crying man before him isn't even wearing skates yet he is trying to climb the barrier. Audience now in complete chaos, speakers blaring with a choir of voiceovers. "No!" Yakov had screamed but blind panic is more powerful than any pesky human.

I can't, I can't. Yuri doesn't understand why the world is still turning- his granddad isn't here anymore. Is noone else feeling this immense emptiness inside? An actual piece of him has been sucked right out of his heart, never to be seen again.

"You're okay," Yuuri is like a voice in his head, persistent and familiar. Sneakers that scrambled clumsily, took a few falls, yet carried the twenty-three year old over to collapse around him. "I've got you."

Never has he fucking cried so much, but he can't stop. Grabbing onto the nearest bit of Yuuri he can find, he buries his face into his jacket and Yuuri shields him from the millions of gaping eyes and flashing reporters. "Shhhh," he whispers and he sobs and sobs until he thinks his lungs are going to give out.

"I don't-" the teenager is inconsolable and digging fingers into his flesh, voice high-pitched and hysterical, indecipherable between the messy gasps for oxygen. "What are you saying Yurio?" he holds him as tight as he possibly can, combing back his hair out of his soaking, hidden face. "I don't know what to do," he repeats again and again.

Oddly enough he can zone out the millions of watchers and demands Yuuri get off the ice and greater demands someone sorts this mess out. They have a competition to run after all. No time for life or death when there is chunks of metal to be won.

"You need to stand," Yuuri says softly, his tone as soft as a fluffy blanket. He's trying to worm his hands under Yuri's arms to scoop him up and out of plain view, but the blonde's limbs are tight and clinging to him with a death grip. "I can't- Yuuri I can't stand!" he hyperventilates and the older rubs at his back, cocooning him in a safety net of support.

"It's okay- that's okay!" Yuuri reassures desperately, trying to calm his panicking tone as he is swiping away his own tears.  
"On the count of three, I'm gonna lift you but you need to try and stand. I can't walk without skates by myself."

The teenager suddenly looks so young that it seems like a crime- putting him on the ice and making him compete like a trained animal. He shakes his head, over and over. 

No, Yuuri please don't leave me. Grip loosening, he cries out and pulls the man closer. I can't do this on my own anymore.  
"If you don't get up Yurio, you won't get to say goodbye to your granddad," he hushes, sniffling wetly into his blonde locks. Now that stirs a reaction other than tears. "Huh?" he looks up for the first time, flushed, blood-shot, and painfully vulnerable.

"Your granddad hasn't died yet, Yurio," Yuuri suddenly realises, taking his face in between his hands and giving his eyes a protective wipe down. "But he's in a very critical condition, we need to leave now."

"Not... dead?" he utters, the world starting to spin so hard he feels the crash of gravity sending this brain-blood whoosing. But it get's him up on moving, half-running towards a pale Viktor. Yuuri is dragged by his wrist, falling and sliding as he struggles to keep up and keep vertical.

"Yuri, I'm so-" Viktor is cut off as Yuri collapses onto normal ground, scrambling with his skates. "I'll get them- Yuri, stop," his idol kneels down, the paparazzi are going fucking mad. There's no time to kick him and slice his stupid face with the blade. An oppportunity Yuri is sure he will later regret.  
"Stay still," he has a comforting hand on his knee and it's warm.

His skin isn't even crawling as Viktor puts a hand on his back and their little team sprints towards an exit. "Here," Yakov meets them among a flurry of people and he shoves the shoes over his costumed feet.

Yuuri, he panics. Where... his eyes dart around the suddenly smothering cluster of strange humans. Oh fuck, oh shit. Now isn't the time to pass out, he tells his swaying legs and darkening vision.

"Yurio!" his Japanese companion/pain in the backside, grabs at his arm. "It's okay, I've got you. Come on, we're nearly at the car." Just like that, his lungs are restored, he can see the blurry outlines of coloured human-shaped blobs. "Keep going."

How can he? It isn't as easy as just doing it. His granddad is the only thing he knows- always has known. Apart from wine bottles in the sink and puke on the carpets, turning his mother on her side so she wouldn't die in her unconscious state and then going back to read his comics. If his granddad is gone... he has nothing. Nothing but his skating, and now he's fucked that up too.

Yuuri can't get them both out without a little cooperation. Reporters apparently have no basic human empathy and crowd around them as he struggles to snap the teenager out of a tear-stained daze. Like Moses and the sea, Viktor strides confidently and speaks in silky, dangerous tones.

"As you can see Yurio has a family crisis so we would appreciate it if you all could give us some space," he smiles all charming and plastic, a gaze that could slice diamonds, "I wouldn't want to have to inform your superiors about misconduct now."

Three of the world's greatest skaters in cahoots. This surely is a dream. Either that or the work of the Illuminati.

They part, blushing apolgies spewing around Viktor's feet like the roses he is so very used to. An unusual, worried frown is creasing up his face as he puts an arm under Yuri's arm and helps him into the waiting car.

Yakov is driving, sweating for a smoke and his hands are slippery against the steering wheel while Viktor bounces his knee on the passenger seat. A head slams into Yuuri's shoulder as he straps him and the teenager's seatbelts. Yuri has his eyelids low, entranced and numb as he lies against Yuuri.

In all his twenty-three years, Yuuri has never seen such raw pain. It's as if all his thick, emotional skin has been peeled back leaving raw and stinging wounds. Grief like this surely can't run riot on a daily basis. People innocently going about their day before being struck down by this- this monster. Maybe he has lived a very sheltered life in his cozy, Yu-topian home.

"Is there any other family that should be contacted?" Viktor is a ball of restless energy but is ever the practical. Yakov shakes his head, steering between the Moscow traffic. Honk, honk, honk. "No. He's an only child but the parents are out of the picture."

Viktor's blue eyes widen, "Dead?" he asks lowly. It's blunt but he hardly has time to ask were they pushing daisies in the sky. But Yakov still retains Yuri's ever so private home life and just shakes his head. "No."

Meanwhile Yuuri has accepted his new life as a substitute pillow and his fluffy form cushions the teenager buried into him. Looking down at his blank face, watery eyes trickling salty fluids onto his lips, he is in an abyss of murky thoughts.

"I can't do it!" he had screamed in frustration, chucking the nearest object- (a mug, woo hoo!) against the wall with a vicious smash. A stomping of feet against the wood and a big sigh, "Yuratchka, you are capable of anything that you want to do," his granddad had said. "Throwing a tantrum is just using up your time. Let's go have some tea, calm, and after that you can keep on practicing if you so want."

Yuri blinks, he can feel a hand at his face that's collecting all his teardrops like they're raindrops for the flowers. Cologne that's cheap and some kind of sweet food clogs up his nostrils as he inhales snuffily.

"Am I coming to live with you granddad?" Yuri had tugged at his granddad's coat, fear making his chest sore. He doesn't see granddad's home lots. It might not be very good and he will miss his superhero comics. But living with granddad does sound like lots more fun than now.

"You are," his granddad had sounded funny, like mum used to before she went all strange. Bending down, even though his back gets sore sometimes, his granddad had stared him straight in the eyes. "I love you to the moon and back, Yuri. You are the bravest person in the world."

Blushing, he had puffed out his chest even though he was pretty tiny. "I'm braver than Superman?" he asked. Despite the weird-ness, his granddad had laughed. "Much braver," he agreed, nodding seriously.

Yuri is mumbling against his chest, fingernails scratching against the little pumps of his decorated legs. "What's that, Yurio?" Yuuri asks softly, rubbing in his shoulder, little circles that stir the teen from his trance. "What are you trying to say?"

"I-" he mumbles, mouth hanging open a little as his eyes fixate on nothing. "Is there anything you need?" Yuuri is severly out of his depth, but making sure the kid isn't going to puke all over himself or pass out or something is a priority. "I'm not," he says simply, looking over at the older skater but not really seeing him. "He lied."

"... he lied."

Cough, cough, cough. Yuri had been trying to block our how irritating the noise had been- he was trying to sleep after all. If granddad is going to keep him awake at night he would rather it was with the cooking; at least he'd have something to show for the sleep deprivation and designer black bags.

"Are you okay?" he had rubbed at his eyes in the kitchen, making his granddad jump. Stopping coughing at last, he straightens up and runs the tap. "Yuri, you will get me into bother with those light-footed steps of yours some day."

Squinting at his guardian in the dark, streetlamps just about lighting their faces from the various windows, Yuri had felt a weird kind of unease. "You've had that flu for a very long time," he remarked.

Granddad laughed long and hard, the kind that couldn't really get his breath back when it was lost. It wasn't that funny. "Us old people don't have the immune systems we once did." Yuri had frowned and rubbed at his nose. He didn't really know much. If his granddad wasn't worrying, everything must be alright.

"You should make some more friends, Yuratchka" his granddad had told him in the big hug that had followed. "I don't want you to be lonely if I'm not around."

"You aren't going anywhere!" Yuri had rolled his eyes with a grin. His granddad could be an idiot at times. "Of course not," the old man had agreed.

Lies, lies, God there were so many- why couldn't Yuri see them before now. "We're here," Yuuri says and his eyes are molded all saddened and soft. Is even that the truth? He frowns at the man, surprised his eyes are leaking again.

"I'll be at your side as long as you want me to," he wraps a hand around his wrist and Viktor throws his long, brown coat into the backseat. "Yurio, love, why don't put that on over your costume?"

The coat may as well be an alien life source in the form of Vegas lap-dancers for all he knew. Staring at it, he blinks, raising his arms unusually obediently as Yuuri pulls it on for him, buttoning it up over the flamboyant clothing underneath.

"Come on," Yuri lets the older man hold onto his wrist as they get out into the freezing air he can't feel. Yakov goes to park up and Viktor puts his fidgeting hands into his pockets, standing up straight before marching off to the reception.

 

Hospitals rarely encase good memories, the bleach-tinged scents and beep, beep, beeping sure to rouse something bad. Not even two days and he's back, this time on his usual side of visitor.

"Oh Yuri," Nurse Levkin cries when they stumble their way into ICU. Yuuri only allowed through the door due to the need for an adult, Viktor banished to the waiting room outside. "I'm so sorry, hun, it's not looking good I'm afraid."

Strapped to his granddad's face is a mask and it is supplying him his life source. Gushing and whirring. In a way, Yuri feels glad. Finally his granddad can take it easy, something else relieving his decaying lungs.

Yuuri is watching the exhange and feeling very much like he's intruding. The old man has pale skin that's wrinkled deep. But when his eyes flicker weakly there is a Plisetsky steel in them that makes him want to cry even more.

"Granddad," Yuri utters, so much less jagged than anyone has ever heard. A completely different person almost. He turns soft when it comes to his granddad. A complete 180° on his personality. But that's because noone else can give him belly laughs like his guardian can, noone else can make his tea just right, or close his curtains so the serial killers don't get in.

The old man's eyes open for real, sleepy but looking at the boy he loves more than life itself. Muffled sounds come through the oxygen mask and when he makes a slow, drained movement to remove it, Yuri panics. "No," he lifts it a little himself.

"You... should be at your... skate," the old man wheezes out before pushing Yuri's hand gently, sucking back in on the air being given. God, this old geezer never thinks about himself. Yuri's shoulders shake as he leans over, head on his granddad's firm shoulder.

Mask lifting again, "No crying... please Yuratchka," he says gently, a big hand resting against the teen's head. Wheeze. Air. "I'm fine... I am just... worried about you."

This is only making him cry more. He can't pull himself together. The last moments he has with his granddad he doesn't want to be crying like a baby. But it won't stop. He's just so- so sad.

"Who's this?" Granddad Plisetsky opens his green eyes wider and looks at Yuuri standing awkwardly by the curtain wall.

Reaching out and tugging him over, Yuri introduces him. "This is Yuuri," he sniffs.  
"The one... the friend," pain medications has the man's head fried, "Katsuka?" he says after another desperate inhale. Unnatural sloshing and gulping sounds rattle in his chest, a nurse noting this as she monitors his stats.

"Close enough," Yuri laughs and the older skater joins in, giving the teenager a squeeze on the shoulder. "You're good," his granddad looks at him with eyes much too intense for his level of ill health. "He really... looks up to... you."

Yuuri turns to him but he doesn't look away from his granddad. No denials are aggressively shouted, no furiously insisted admission that he can't stand the idiot. He instead holds his granddad's big hand in between two of his own, smiling brokenly.

"I look up to Yuri too," he says and places a comforting hand on his back, the teen unable to hide his surprise. "You have a brilliant grandson, Mr Plisetsky."

Smiling dopily, drugs and illness cloud his brain, Granddad Plisetsky nudges away the mask. "I am so very proud... every single day... no matter how many... medals you win." Yuri chokes out a trapped sob as his granddad squeezes his hand tightly.

"Please don't leave me," he begs, as though the man can patch up shitty lungs through sheer willpower, jumping out of bed and going home to cook for them. "I can't- I can't do anything without you."

"Yuuri will... teach you how to... do the washing."

"-That's not what I meant!" he cries, the whole ICU suddenly seeming so much quieter as he collapses onto his knees in a fit of sobs. "I don't want to do anything without you!" Yuuri picks him up back up and holds him tight against his chest.

Pulse is dropping, BP is dropping. The nurse looks over in quiet pity.

"Shush, come here," his granddad tugs his hand very lightly. He's careful of the swarm of drips and IV lines shoved into his body. Yuri falls, elbows on the mattress, his head on his granddad's chest. "You can... I know you can."

Yuuri takes a step back to speak quietly with nurse, giving them the privacy to speak their native language.

"No," he shakes his head, the stark white sheets dappening underneath. Teeth clench down on his bruised lip and he feels a hand brush at his hair. God, please, I'll do anything. Not granddad. Anyone but him.

"Yes," his lips are beginning to tinge blue as he's so, so cold. "I love you Yuri," he wheezes out before pushing the mask back on and sucking into it, fluid splashing in the cavity of his chest and his grandson can hear it under his head.

"I love you too," he chokes and despite the wormy messy of pipes and cords, he wraps his arms around his granddad's torso.

He has never meant it more in his life.

"Love you granddad!" he had chirped when he was leaving, shoving Batman cards into his jeans and crayons into his hoody. He hadn't really known what it meant. It was what his granddad says when he left. Synonymous with goodbye.

"Love you," he would mutter, half asleep when his granddad would sit up with him after his night terrors. Tears drying on his face and the old man's shirt, he would sleep with his granddad's sleeve bunched in his hands.

"Yeah, you know-" he would mumble, early teenage embarrassment phase. His classmates could look over and see, for god's sake granddad! "Hm?" the old man would drum his fingers smugly on the steering wheel until Yuri spluttered out a red-faced, "Love you," before running off, satchel flapping and school shirt un-tucked.

"Congratulations!" Granddad had cheered as he jumped up into his arms, spinning him around like a carousel as he laughed. He was going to have a shot in the Senior Division. Fuck all those idiots who had said he couldn't do it. "We will have piroshkis tonight!" the old man beamed, "I am the proudest grandfather in the world!" Yuri had looked up with eyes like the galaxy. "I love you so much, granddad!"

Pulse is falling steadily, he already feels like a corpse.

"I wish it was me," Yuri chokes out. He means every word. Self-hatred and anger, Yuuri gasps out in shock. "No," his granddad flickers exhausted eyes open in anger. "You... are only fifteen. All of your... life... is ahead of you."

"I've ruined it all," he is getting hysterical, his eyes taking on that destructive, manic look that Yuuri hates to see. "No you haven't, idiot. The whole crowd was with you every step of the way." It's true though, through every crumpling collapse and withered tumble, the audience watched the greatest ressurection they had ever seen, unfold.

Beneath the wreckage of a chaotic performance, a boy broken beyond repair had rose back up through the dust. Blood, sweat and tears. What is this force that keeps us going despite all of the opposing forces that drag us down? All the vines that wrap around our wrists and ankles and chain us to the cave under our duvet.

He had glowed, gold and blinding as sparks shot out of every movement. Tears ricochet like a sprinkler off his face and suddenly they all knew what it was- this force.

Agape.

Unconditional love.

"I need you... to listen Yuratchka," his granddad is starting to find it harder to speak. The nurse wants to tell him to stop, to conserve those precious molecules of oxygen and filter out all that toxic carbon dioxide. But she can't stomach the look on that teenager, clinging to the bed in a sparkly costume and a brown trenchcoat.

A lump stops him replying and his granddad grabs at his hand. "Yuri," his chest rattles.

"Okay- okay!" he cries out, wiping at his face with his forearm. This is sounding too much like a goodbye and Yuri doesn't think his knees will hold out.

"You... need to make friends," Yuri resists the urge to roll his eyes. The old man was always banging on about that. "Get... a good education," School? Yeah, the drugs must have gone to his head. "Do... what you love... no matter what," he gasps for breath and Yuri wants to tell him to shut up; to breathe; to live.

"Find... someone you love... a girlfriend maybe," he adds cheekily and it makes even the nurse snicker, Yuri blushing and stuttering a defence. "-Or a boyfriend... perhaps," he winks at his grandson and the light-heartedness only makes eyes fill to the brim.

Switching to Russian after a long series of inhales and exhales from the mask, his granddad looks at him seriously. He can see right through the teenager like a sheet of glass.

"Please stop doing it," he begs, eyes creasing up his wrinkles as watery trails dampen the plastic. "What?" he feels his heart gallop like a race horse.

"I know, my love... Nurse Levkin spoke to me," Surely it's not about that. Nobody... nobody knows about that. "I can see it... the burden, son," Please, no. Sobs trap his empty lungs. "You are going to die... if you keep it up. Please... get help... for me."

"I can't," he grasps at his granddad, the entire universe around him crashing down at his feet. Shame, fear, utter despair. "It's not- it's not like that."

Seventy-eight years is hell of a lot longer than a mere fifteen. Granddad Plisetsky has been around the block and knows denial when he sees it. He only wishes he could have stuck around a little longer to pull his boy out of this pit. A glasses wearing boy is looking on in confusion and the old man prays so, so hard, this youthful adult won't leave his Yuri.

He sinks into his mask, taking the boy's long, bony fingers. Rubbing his thumb against the little callouses and blisters he expects to be there, the man's eyes spill over. "Please, Yuratchka... you don't need... to do that to yourself."

Monitors have started to beep in alarm. Panicking, Yuri whips his head around and grabs at his granddad. "It's okay, honey," the nurse speaks up, "I'm going to turn the sound off these, but his O2 levels are very low. I don't think he will last much longer."

"Promise... me," his granddad is begging in Russian, holding the boy's hand in his own.

God, he's so cold it must be painful. Ice white skin and blue tinged extremities. Yuri shakes his head, teeth gritting together in desperation. He can feel his world shattering, the only person he has ever truly loved slipping like quicksand through his fingers.

"Yuri..." he grinds out of beaten lungs, eyes flickering like a shitty, beaten-down light bulb. "I-I'll try, I promise, okay?" he says, mopping up his cheeks with a sleeve and part of him just want to get his granddad to stop wasting his energy on him.

"I'll see your grandmother... at last," he whispers, "She was... so beautiful. I loved her... so much. She thought the world of you. You would... have... adored her," he closes his eyes and smiles, peace resting in his rusty veins. Yuri holds him tightly, head tucked into his freezing shoulder.

Green eyes don't open again, he keeps the mask on and Yuri listens to his heart as it fights on, pulsing and using everything he has to keep on a little longer.

As Yuri rests his head against his granddad's chest, the other Yuuri turns away. He stares at the soundless monitor- pulse is dangerously low. A tiny gasp comes from the old man and he slips into unconsciousness. He can hear quiet whispers of Russian, sweet things Yuri probably never got the chance to say.

"It will be soon," the nurse says to Yuuri, reaching out and holding the stranger's hand. Why is he crying? It's not his grandfather dying on the bed. But the pain in the room is too sharp to not cut the hearts of all its occupants.

"You are the only person I trust," Yuri holds his wrist, the weak pulse is barely felt. "I'll-" a hiss of agony.

"-I'll miss you so much!" 

Welded wrinkles engraved in the old man's ceramic face, smoothen out. Pasty, clammy skin looking like a porcelain angel. He smiles a little smile, all gentle and kind, his eyebrows rising as if he is listening to every word.

"Goodbye granddad," Yuri inhales wetly, throat tight and he's holding the shards of his broken chest as tight as he can. No. No. It can't be happening. It's too soon. There's so much he hasn't said yet!

No pulse under his fingertips, he starts to weep. Grief climbing like spiders under and across every ounce of volume in his body.

"Sleep well," he kisses shaking fingertips and presses them against the man's silent heart.

The nurse reaches out, experienced hands tilting her patient's chin up to press two fingers along his arteries. She waits and waits before removing the oxygen mask and holding onto the teenager's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry Yuri," he hears her saying, recording the time of death. And he doesn't realize it's him doing all the screaming until Yuuri comes over and holds him tightly, whispering sweet hushing noises into his hair as he wails.

ICU, usually a still place for the unconscious and their families is now filled with haunting, tormented cries of a boy who has just lost his entire life.

"Wake up," he pleads, hands at his granddad's face. "Please, please, wake up!"  
Yuuri is helpless, holding the teen up because he knows there's not enough strength in him to keep upright. Noone would wish this on their worst enemy.

"I'll do anything, I- I swear, I'll stop, granddad I promise!" he is sobbing over the body; it's beginning to grow even colder and Yuri wants to give all his heat to his granddad. "He's so cold, Yuuri-" he looks up at the dark-haired skater with a crushing look.

His eyes bloodshot green, spilling messy tears all down his face as his fingernails dig into Yuuri's flesh. He crumbles. "He's okay, Yuri," he promises, hugging him protectively. "He's with your grandmother and he has no more pain anymore. His lungs work just fine now."

There's no fixing this. Yuuri can't make pain like this go away.

"I'm so sorry honey, but we need to get your granddad ready. Do you want to sit in the family room and have some tea?" she says it but when the teenager gives no response, she starts aiming the question more towards Yuuri.

"Okay, thank you," he practically carries Yuri out and when they reach the corridor, he bolts like a frightened rabbit. "Yuri!" he shouts and ends up chasing him into the men's bathroom.

 

Empty, taps drip, and Yuri pants and gasps for breath before a fogged-up mirror. The door slams open and he darts into a cubicle, locking it and sinking to his knees.

"Yuri?" 

God, he can't fucking breathe, he can't fucking see. This is a nightmare. Three, two, one, he's going to wake up. Every couple of seconds he almost forgets and then he's seeing it all again, his granddad dying on repeat in his head. It's like someone is using his chest as target practice, the grief cutting him right down to the bone.

He punches the wall until his knuckles drip oily blood onto the tiles.

"Stop- stop Yuri! Please don't!" Yuuri is screaming and banging on the cubicle door, before reaching under and giving his ankle a tug until he can reach his arms.

Pulling back, Yuri kicks out. Numb. Cold. Alone. He puts his head in his hands and pulls at his hair. "Open the door, Yurio. Come on, please open up."

Shadows splay darkened bodies lustfully against the wall, smoky clouds of monster and ghoul forms that grab at his ankles and string his neck up. Help! Shit! Please- he can't catch his breath, chest tight like he's having an asthma attack or something. Fingertips are fizzling with pins and needles. A witch is standing over him, pointed knife at his jugular and she's laughing, cackling at his pitiful state.

"You are having a panic attack, Yurio. Breathe in for four seconds, okay?" he hears but it's like he's under water. One, two, three, four. "Hold it for seven, okay? You are doing really well." He obliges, his body protesting with every second. "Now let it go for eight, then repeat."

Yuuri reaches under the water and pulls him out, choking and sniveling in his arms. He cleans up his aching hand and wipes at his tears with toliet roll. He sits like a corpse himself, barely even blinking. How far could he have fallen to allow for this?

 

When Yuuri suggests they go to the relative's room, he doesn't expect Viktor and Yakov to be sitting there. Freezing like they've just been rowing, they bolt upright as though the weary kid is their general.

"Yurio," Viktor says and exchanges some kind of telepathic eye contact with his teary boyfriend.

Arms open like an angel's wings and Yuri's crying even before he has reached Viktor. It hurts all over again, like his granddad has just choked out his last breath before his eyes. And he can't get the picture out of his head. A man so full of life- dead. It couldn't be right. People don't just... disappear.

"I'm so sorry," Viktor tells him over and over again. He's like a fucking chocolate teapot when it comes to crying people. But a weird kind of instinct takes over him and he clutches Yuri and strokes his strands of wet hair.

"What happened to his hand?" Yakov asks quietly, burying down his own hurt at losing such an old friend to a disease so cruel. Shaking his head, Yuuri wipes away a tear or two. It's neither the time nor the place but he's so damn proud of his boyfriend.

Vending machine whirrings, the electric fan, the hustle and bustle of hospital goings-on on the other side of the door. Yuri's sobbing is an addition in the orchestra of life, however, it is the solo piece. With every hitched breath, the small audience feel their collective hearts break.

How could a competition mean more than this? To think that hours previous they were worrying over something so- so stupid? Well, no. Stupid isn't the word. But when a family is broken and a child is orphaned, it certainly seems ridiculous now.

"Your grandfather is all ready, Yuri, honey," Nurse Levkin has arrived. Red hair tied back and she looks wrecked-tired. Hands slip into his on both sides, Yuri lets his chest fill up and promises himself he will be brave. He will prove his granddad's words right and be brave one last time.

 

Ethereal. It was a word he never would have assosiated with his pastry and smoke smelling granddad. The man loved animals and grass and snow- the outdoors. He was very much an Earth-dwelling creature.

Strange how different a person can look when they're dead. It's not really like sleeping at all. His granddad isn't snoring and drooling for start, and he never lies with his hands cupped across his chest. But he does look peaceful.

Yuri ultimately enters alone. Viktor and Yuuri had offered but this is much too private for their eyes. Granddad wouldn't have wanted a big fuss.

Sparkly Agape costume and much-too-big trenchcoat acts as his armour and he steels himself up tall. Chin up. He takes his granddad's hand; it's dead weight and cold, linking their fingers. Don't cry. You've done enough of that.

He can't think of anything important he should say. There's nothing he hasn't already said or thought. But really he knows if he starts talking he will only start bawling.

"Promise me," his granddad had begged on his deathbed.

Yuuri feels a blanket of shame coat him like a burrito. How much of a bastard is he that he doesn't even think he could try? When it's one of his only ways to control the pit of whirring bullshit in his brain. How did granddad find out? It shouldn't matter but it feels like hellicopters of panic are invading his head.

A young Yuri is peeking out the window aged four. Wide, scared eyes fixed on the dodgy street below their run-down apartment block. Mum has been gone from breakfast yesterday and he is worried. The TV isn't switching on because he doesn't know which buttons to press and it's so quiet he can hear his shallow breathing.

Bang, bang, bang. The door rattles and he does what his mum had told him to do.  
Climbing into the tiny gap between the closet and the wall, he hears stomping boots in the flat.

Men are talking about money or something and when they go, Yuri has his first panic attack. When he comes to, he looks around and for the first time in his young life- he realizes he really must be alone.

Like a blast from the past, that same feeling hits present day Yuri.

He is the only living person in the room. And when he gets home... it'll be the same. Granddad isn't coming home. He isn't going to sit up and watch late night movies with him. He isn't going to try and fatten him up with delicious food. He isn't going to phone Yuri when he's away from home to make sure he's looking after himself.

Slithery tear-snakes slip down his cheeks. Fuck not crying. Fuck being brave. Fuck life. 

He wants his granddad back.

He weeps until Nurse Levkin picks him up off the floor and calls for one of the others. Yuri kisses his granddad's head and clings to him. If you won't come back, let me come too. Please.

Please.

"Come on, let's get you home," Yuuri collects his limbs up like a parcel. A long, gut-wrenching day he wouldn't relive for all the money in the world. "I don't have a home!" he bites, eyes flashing with familiar bladed anger.

Viktor and Yuuri look at eachother helplessly. What do they say that won't just make everything ten times worse?

"You can stay at my flat tonight, Yurio. We can go and pack some of your things and Yakov will drive," this is the first Yakov has heard of that, judging by the look on his face. "I have a huge TV, and game consoles and a fish tank," he's rambling a bit; nervousness doesn't suit him.

Yuri just wants to curl up in his granddad's bed and never come out.

"You shouldn't be by yourself, love," he speaks all soft with endearment, like Yuri is some kind of younger relative or something. But Viktor is fucking nothing to him. Less than the dirt on his shoes.

 

He is taken anyway. Sitting numbly in the car while Yuuri packs up his stuff. He can't face going in and seeing all the places his granddad has lived in. Despite having not really lived there in weeks- there was always that hope. His chair. His favourite cup. His ashtray. Now they're just... things.

Shoving a takeaway down his throat, he looks up and he's sitting in Viktor's posh flat. Reality- bang! The food suddenly is like heavy mush. He swallows it anyway and silently slopes off to bed.

"What are we going to do?" Yuuri looks afraid, desperate for Viktor to give him some sort of answer. "I don't know love," he wraps his arms around his precious boyfriend, layering his neck with comforting little kisses. "We let him grieve. We support him. I don't know much more... I- I'm not good with this sort of stuff."

"Either am I..." he chews at fingernails, already bitten down short with anxiety.

"No," Viktor cups his cheeks. He looks at him like he's a gift from God. "You are brilliant, you've kept us all together today."

A pot splutters over inside Yuuri. Today has just been a nightmare. He sniffles into Viktor's neck. "I don't know what I would do if I lost you."

Viktor has no tact. He is also a bit of an insensitive ass. This is all a fact. It's on his birth certificate and everything.

"You would have a bit of peace and quiet," Viktor shrugs, "Then you'd find a rich, young thing that'll swoop you off your feet," he pauses, rubbing at his chin. "Perhaps I'll haunt you after all... can't have some little bastard with his dirty paws on my boyfriend."

 

Yuri has his head buried under the pillow yet despite how exhausted he is, sleep won't come. Eventually he hears footsteps and he lets Yuuri do his hourly check-up.

The man is as exhausted as he is and he plants himself down on the other side of the bed. How the hell did he get into sweatpants and a t-shirt? Where is the costume and the coat?

Eyelids shut. All he sees is granddad dead, cold. They shoot back open like bullets.  
Blinding light of a phone is at his side, Yuuri has his arm around the teenager and is stroking the top of his head. "I have some hilarious YouTube videos you need to see." A distraction technique. Yuri watches blankly as cats fall off skateboards, people twerk, and little kids say very inappropriate things.

Viktor is cross-legged at the end of the bed, loyal supplier of hot drinks; they all sip quietly.

God, Yuri looks around. He needs to call his granddad, he'll be wondering where he is. Wait- what's he talking about? Granddad is next door. They're at home. It's coming up to Christmas, of course he wants to try new recipes.

(It's not denial if it helps him sleep).

He can hear his granddad coughing hoarsely as he boils the water for their tea. Footsteps on wooden floors aren't Viktor's and the arm around his shoulder isn't Yuuri's.

That big TV at the end of the bed? His granddad got lucky on a scratch-card and treated him. Re-decorated the room too. It makes sense. Things are starting to add up.

What? No. He isn't crying. Okay... maybe he is a little. But it's only because he's so fucking happy. His granddad didn't die- how absurd is the thought! He has a family, he has friends, he is loved, he is okay.

Repeating it over and over again like mantra, he drifts off.

An insane contrast to the previous night, Yuuri nursing a grieving teenager in one hand and a playlist of stupid videos in the other as Viktor looks on, rubbing the duvet encasing one of Yuri's feet.

One life lost in the world and they find it strange that despite it all, it keeps turning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides*
> 
> i'm sorry okay??
> 
> thank you for reading this far! and for sticking with my story. let me know if you have any thoughts/opinions/etc down below- the motivation and support you guys have given me is immense. this fandom rocks!! :)x


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am seriously blown right away but the remarkable response on the last chapter....like i have never felt such emotion before. your reception was amazing guys...you make this the best fandom ever!!!!
> 
> and now the reason is over i don't know what else to do with my life but to write...and cry...and keep crying ;-;
> 
> onto this chapter...  
> i hope you like it!!
> 
> i am putting a strong trigger warning on this chapter too just incase. there may be sensitive scenes. please look after yourself my sweet cinnamon rolls.
> 
> :)x

On the first night, Yuri sleeps like a fallen log in a thunderous forest. Curled on his side, drained dry and arm heavy against Yuuri's chest, his chest rises with each heavy breath. From the sidelines, Viktor watches as his boyfriend wriggles out from under the teen and they meet in the kitchen.

No words. Viktor finds a bottle of vodka behind some jars in a cupboard. It hits the glasses with a series of glugs and they pick them up, clinking in a cheers. Hissing, the vile taste makes them cringe and when Viktor slides his arms round Yuuri's soft hips, an escaped sob join the space between them.

White lights from the porch shines through the kitchen window and they cling to each other, swaying lightly for a moment. Before Yuuri pushes away suddenly, scrambling for his mobile phone and darting off into the pristine sitting room. Leaving the Russian squinting at his back.

"Hello?"

Biting down on his knuckles, he sighs in relief at the exhausted voice. "Mum?" he lowers his head towards his knees, fingers sliding along the squishy cushions. "Are you okay, sweetie?" she asks softly, even though it's fucking 4' o clock and she has an onsen to run in the morning.

Despite being the caller, Yuuri can't speak. He feels like one of those prank calls. "I saw your performance- we were all cheering for you," she tries again, Yuuri's dad mumbling sleepily beside her. "But I saw what happened with Yurio... That is something I am much more proud about."

It never occured to him- that the whole world had saw them. Such a moment captured on video, on newspapers, on the internet... forever and ever. It makes bile creep up his throat. How could something so immoral even be legal?

"What happened, sweetie?" she asks and he actually does sniffle this time, suddenly aching and wanting to be home. "Yuri," he swallows to stabilise his tone. "His granddad died. We're at Viktor's house now... I- I don't know what I'm going to do mum."

Viktor catches his heightened tone from his jittery place in the kitchen. Rooting his feet firmly to the marble tiles, he shakes his head. Desperate tones, he hears Yuuri tells her how much he loves her. Another glass finds its way into Viktor's hand and- whoops! One more shot of vodka glides down his throat.

 

Five o' clock news, they curl on the sofa with legs tangled up. Yuuri has his head in the crook of Viktor's shoulder, practically sitting in his lap as the other massages comforting circles into his stomach.

Their press photos scowl back at them, BREAKING NEWS bursting onto their screens in Russian. Frantic for the remote, Viktor finds it in between the cushions before the dreaded moment is shown. They watch cartoons that Yuuri can't understand but he slides in and out of a fitful sleep, hands wrapped around Viktor's chest.

 

Six-thirty, they hear a thump. Yuuri gallops into the air and tumble-weeds straight into the bedroom, more than likely breaking record speed. Yuri is stirring, a lamp rolls pathetically on the carpet like an attention-seeking puppy.

"He's okay," he whispers to Viktor but repeats it a few more times for himself.

"Come on, love, you look shattered," he feels his hand tugged and Viktor pulls him down onto the empty side of the bed. "Close your eyes and get some sleep," he breathes and takes Yuuri's glasses off with a light touch.

"I love you," he kisses his forehead and lies horizontally across the bottom, like a cat by their feet. "Love you too." Hearing the exchange, the younger Yuri closes his eyes tighter, hands clamped against his ears, shoving his leaking eyes further into the pillow.

 

11 o' clock. A more reasonable time to be conscious, Yuuri feels disgustingly sleep-sweaty and jumbled-up. "Viktor," he mumbles at the body beside him, nudging a tiny shoulder that he soon realises is lacking a layer of hard muscle. Eyes open, apprehensive, he curses as it soon hits him he's been poking and prodding at a half-dead Yuri.

Only a quarter conscious, the teen stares around blankly. Squinting and perplexed, he seems to have reached a decision. Promptly shoving his head further under the duvet until he falls back asleep.

 

"It's okay," Viktor tells him over creamy coffee on the porch. "It's normal. The longer he sleeps, the longer he can put off dealing with what's happened."

Bitterness rooting itself to his tastebuds, Yuuri frowns. "That's not healthy Viktor," he chews at his nails and Viktor pulls his nibbled-down hands away with a flick of his wrist. "I didn't say it was healthy, love. I just said it's a normal reaction."

Breakfast interuppted, Yakov buzzes himself in and Viktor goes to greet him. The old man's looking a little worse for wear himself, the previous day having left a dent. He'll probably never get the horrible sight out of his head. "Good morning," he says to Yuuri who nods politely in response.

"I need to speak with you both," he says and they share a wispy, confused look. "Okay," Viktor rubs his hands together like they're covered and dusty with flour. "I'll put the kettle on, go and sit in the sitting room."

 

Yakov talks, and talks, and talks. Yuuri is a polite man, but for god's sake he wishes he would just shut his trap. Wait- sorry. He didn't mean that, he swears. It's just his head aches and Yuri still hasn't woke up.

Okay, so there's lots of legal issues to sort out. Press stuff. A funeral to arrange. And the slight issue of the Child Protection Agency firmly nipping at Yakov's heels.

"I am as close to a legal guardian as he has now, but the courts aren't just going to dump him with me- and Yuri isn't going to agree to that."

Damn right. Yuuri can hear it now- 'I'm not living with that old geezer' and then there will be a slam of some sort of door. Viktor rubs at his creased brow like he's trying to manually iron out his premature wrinkles.

"He isn't close enough to eighteen yet, odds are he will end up in care or with a foster family," Yakov swallows down his coffee, wishing it was something stronger. The thought of Yuri having to acclimatise to a new set of soft, sensitive humans... A shudder eats up his spine.

"What about his parents?" Viktor asks once more. As if they haven't trekked this path before. Yakov shoots him a stern look, one so familiar to silver-haired man it's like being twenty all over again. "Vitya, I am not discussing this. You will just have to trust my word that he is better off without that woman."

Slinking back like a scolded child, Viktor nods. It piques both their curiosities but there's a time and a place for curiosity, and today is not it. Yuuri splays his fingers across his knee as a silent, comfort-masked warning.

"I'm sure there's aunts, uncles- someone!" Viktor tries moments later when the silence settles like a rippling pond. "He can't just have one known family member and that's it?" Incredulous and winding the man up like a clock, Viktor has had too much caffeine, and too many hours pacing and pacing, and remembering.

"You are just going to have to come to terms with that fact that the responsibility now lies with us," Yakov utters in Russian, Yuuri staring at his boyfriend for the translation he never receives. It's not Yuuri's weight to carry. He's young. He's competing. And it's Yakov and Viktor who have spent many, many years with the grouchy teenager.

 

Under thick walls of rock, impermeable and stuffy, Yuri breathes hard and heavy in his cave. Just about registering his surroundings, he knows he's in a bed and there's a kind of nipping at the tender flesh of his stomach.

Covers peel back slightly and a rush of blinding lights sends his retinas quaking in pain. Where... where is he? It was a question asked more to fill the pulsating void in his mind. Fill up the space as quick as he could before the answers arrived.

Soft, silky sheets under his fingers and they waft laundry-deturgent up his nostrils. Yes. Good. Stay on track. They must have been expensive. Wait- no. Gentle nipping turns to a determined poke, an anxious dread accumulating from the vessels in the tips of his toes and bubbling nausea all the way to the surface. He's not in his own bed, and there's a reason for this.

Wrapping his hands round his ears, he pulls his knees up close to his chest like he's waiting for a bomb to detonate. Beep, beep, beep. It's coursing to the tune of his racing heart. Pure, unexplainable, impending doom. Any second now, his sleepy, confused oblivion will be shattered and he'll wish he never woke up at all.

Someone knocks at the door and it goes off.

Shards of metal pelt the wallpaper and thick smoke makes him choke for breath. God, the flames though. He's right in the middle of the explosion and it hurts so fucking bad.

Pain. Chest. Air. It's a flipbook in his mind, flashbacks and daydreams and a whole blockbuster movie. Granddad, eyes closed and cold... so cold. Hands grasp inbetween his fingers, numb and weightless. It's sensory memory and all he can feel are those dead fingers. Ones that should be flicking him on the side of the head, or giving his shoulder a grounding squeeze.

Stop. Stop. Please. Yuri screws his eyes closed and he prays for sleep. Take him back to the safe haven where his granddad is alive in his mind and he's pushing him on that rusty, old swingset.

"Can I come in?"

No you fucking can't, you piece of shit. But funnily enough his vocal chords are paralysed. Numb, whether from overuse the night before or just- just whatever this is. Who knows. He just wants to turn down all this noise. Tear out all the knives leaving messy, internal bleeding in his chest.

Closing his hands together, he recites the only prayer he knows. Religion isn't a forefront in his life, playing a backseat to his actively mantained social media but likes and retweets and shares aren't going to bring his granddad back. He prays and prays and prays until the words mesh around like a gloopy chant, foreign on his whispered lips and Yuuri is shaking him like he's a tambourine.

"Open your eyes, Yuri. It's only me. You're okay," he's saying things like this in his ear and the teen bites his lip so damn hard; it probably bruises. No. There's no way in hell he's opening his eyes, and looking around, seeing things in a world where his granddad just isn't there.

Looking and looking, and never finding him. And Yuri doesn't care if he's being ridiculous, or crazy, or childish. But it's not happening if he can't see it. So for as long as he's in bed, under the covers, his granddad is at home and he's merely at an involuntary sleepover with these two idiots.

"It's nearly four in the afternoon, Yuri," he says so carefully it's like he's on that last level of Super Mario. Tiptoeing, voice barely breaking audible levels, and one wrong move means he's consumed by Bowser and flattened to a pulp. "I know you don't want to get out of bed, and that's okay. But it's been too long from you've last eaten."

For once it feels like there's actually no room in his stomach, in between all the heavy blocks of concrete, impaling swords and bubbling acid. The thought of adding to it makes his pallid cheeks blanch.

"What do you want to eat?" Yuuri is used to his one-sided monologues. "I can make anything you want, even if I have to send Viktor driving all over the city to find the ingredients. Or we can eat out- or get takeway?"

"-I want piroshkis," he manages to croak out past the gravel and lumps.

But before Yuuri's eyes are switched on like two spotlights, he's sent pummeling. "I want granddad's piroshkis." No tears, no heart-wrenching sobs. Just a blank, emotionless statement that makes Yuuri's chest ache more than the crying ever could.

"I'm not a very good cook," he splutters and laughs nervously, as if that explosion of a noise will somehow fill up all the silence-gaps that are thickening the tension. "I can make some katsudon? Or you can come with me to the supermarket and we can choose something?"

Dull, white noises fizzles in Yuri's ears and the older skater is flapping his lips about like it's his job. What he's saying is any man's guess but Yuri figures if he buries his head back under, he's killing two birds with one stone- drowning him out like an early morning alarm.

 

"Any luck?" Viktor sits up. Him and Yakov have been talking alone for over an hour and he's looking increasingly more like alcoholism is his next career move. "No," Yuuri shakes his head and bounces around on the balls of his feet.

There's nowhere to run. No 999 call for grief. No escape. He can't hide behind his hands and just- hope Yuri fixes himself better. It feels awkward on his skin, and anxious energy is twitching in his limbs, and his tongue is heavy, useless lead.

"Go and cook something," his boyfriend tugs on his jumper and he relents from his major-panic-situation set mode, nodding. "I will try and sort it," Viktor has his soft eyes on. A pair reserved only for him. No jokes, no goofy flirting. Solemn and full of clear love. How could he not soak up every promised word?

 

Meal splat on a plate, Viktor is handed a hot, aromatic dish and some cutlery. "Yuri," he calls, the curtains are pulled and the room stinks of sweat. "C'mon Yurio, please sit up and try to eat a little."

A bulge on the bed remains inanimate. Go the fuck away, why are you even here you waste of space? No sound except regulated inhales and exhales. Please Viktor, help me. Make it go away. I'm begging you.

"Yuuri made this, I think he might be offended if you don't at least try it," he tries, crossing his legs as he sits beside the duvet lump. His nervous leg-jiggling is making the mattress bounce. Yuri wants to snap his limbs at every joint. Or clutch them tightly until he starts to feel like he might be able to stand again.

"Look, if it's shit I'll go buy you expensive takeaway and dessert, you can have whatever milkshake you want," he rubs at Yuri's back. Bribery- that helps, doesn't it? "And I'll let you sign into my Instagram account on my phone. You put as many embarrassing comments or pictures up as you want."

Desperation might be more masked than Yuuri-about-to-pass-out-Katsuki, but it's still there. Helpless and leeching on his tone and every tiny gesture he makes. His brows are strained and bags hang under his eyes like they're trying to touch his chin.

God, if it gets rid of the twat... Yuri tears back the covers and emerges from his cave.

Viktor puts the plate forward and holds it so it doesn't end up plastering the duvet. He watches as junior stares at the food for a couple of seconds before grabbing some with his hand.

"I- I have a spoon- you might burn yourself!" his words fall on deaf ears and the teenager shovels it in with not an ounce of expression on his face. "Yuri-" he can still see the steam rising. "Water," Yuri says simply and Viktor doesn't need to be asked twice before he's galloping out, leaving the plate on the mattress.

"Huh?" Yuuri squints and his frantic boyfriend and closes up the cupboard he had been squinting at previously. He was sure there has been a lot more vodka in the bottle this morning.

Viktor hasn't even got the glass half filled before he hears a thud. Fuck. His sock-covered feet thump on the carpets as he swooshes his head around the door to find Yuri on his knees, a few feet from the bed.

Gagging and spewing, he's completely covered in what once was a meal. Three quarters of the plate practically inhaled in less than a minute, Viktor is barely surprised to find it vomited all over the pitiful teenager and his so very precious bed sheets.

"Yuri?" Yuuri joins the shitfest, having bolted to the door as Viktor covers his mouth and internally wails. The young blonde looks like he's seconds away from sobbing into his disgusting t-shirt, Viktor acting on impulse, drops to his knees beside him.

"It's alright, it's okay," his high-pitched panic voice is incredibly not reassuring, it almost rivals that of Yuuri's himself. "Look, it's okay- there's no harm done," Yuuri wants to swoop in and take over, because as if Yuri is actually concerning himself over the flipping bedding. He resists though, wringing out his fingers like a wet cloth.

"Just a little mishap, I'll have it sorted in two seconds flat," he says softly, rubbing at his non-vomit covered back. It's the only damn place that isn't covered in body fluids. A damp towel isn't going to cut it.

"Come on, love," he says as Yuri morphs into a terrified hedgehog, burying in on himself and shaking with tensely-trapped sound. Spikes sticking out like swords, all aimed towards Viktor's vulnerable neck. "It isn't too far from the bathroom... Yuuri can you go and get some towels and clothes?"

Not even the thought of Viktor seeing him in this way is enough to drag him out of this pit. Clawing, red-bloodied nails, he can only see black and the smell is clogging up his senses. Where are you? Can't you see I'm drowning here? Okay. Fun's over... I said I need you. Please come out now. He feels hands pick him up from the floor, a humiliating bridal-style he wants to kick his way out of.

But his muscles fail to respond.

He is poking at his granddad's face and he just isn't moving... monitor switched off... mouth drooping. Cold tiles hit his soaked sweatpants and he feels the acid hit his throat over and over again, Viktor pointing him over the toliet and rubbing pathetic circles in his back. Vision back to black. It's better than reliving his thoughts, chest throbbing and hands shaking.

"Just take a big breath," Viktor is wiping at his mouth, sounding truly traumatised by the whole situation. "Yuri, come on. You need to cough to make sure there's nothing in your windpipes."

Like he needs this absolute loser lecturing him about fucking anything. Go away to hell, he thinks as he coughs spots of blood into the toliet bowl. It raises the elder's alarm bells and when the pain hits again- Yuri whimpers and squeezes at his hand. It isn't beads of red on porcelain- it's globs of crimson on tissues, hidden in pockets out of his sight.

"Granddad, is that-" he would begin and the biggest, widest grin would cut him off. "How about we go and... "

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

At least the puking has stopped, Viktor is staring down between a rock and hard place. Yuri is completely disgusting looking, clothes soiled beyond saving, but he isn't exactly in the best mindset to worry about personal hygiene.

Invasion of privacy, it might be best to leave all this to Yuuri. He yearns to do just that. But the echoes of the boy sobbing to his mum over the phone play at his conscience. He can't just palm off all the hard stuff to his already struggling boyfriend. He's Viktor Nikiforov. He can handle it.

"Yuri, I'm running a bath, okay love?" he peels his weightless limbs away from the bacteria-breeding ground and he tumbles grossly into Viktor's chest involuntarily. "I won't look," he pours in half a bottle of sweet-swelling fluid one-handedly, the other hand keeps the spaced-out kid steady.

As it runs, the sloshing sounds calming down his rapid pulse, Viktor starts into the main task ahead. Gingerly catching the edge of the shirt, he grimaces and realises there's no way he can avoid getting his hands dirty. The admission is almost catharic and he tugs of the remainder of the bratty teen's ruined items.

Yuuri barely hides his surprised when he locates the en-suite armed with towels and some of Viktor's clothes. The 'I thought you would leave this to me' goes unspoken and the 'We will support him together' is shot back in a look too heavy for light of day.

"There, love, just climb in and me and Yuuri will turn around," he has big hands wrapped under freezing, shaking limbs. Out of his depth, but just about managing; Yuuri swallows back a lump as he picks up the soaked clothing from the floor.

Warm water submerging Yuri's skin, it makes the sudden situation come to life. Red gushing to his face almost by instinct alone... Viktor just helped him into a fucking bath. Surely nothing else in his life will top this for the utter humiliation award.

It's making him want to dunk his suddenly flushed face under the water and never come up. But it a weird sort of way, he's relieved for Viktor's sturdy hands because if he didn't have them- he'd be submerged right now anyway.

That and his eyes pointed on firmly anything but him.

"Here, I'm giving you a sponge. Wash up and then I'll try and scrub the vomit out of your hair," he says it so softly that the real, honest to god affection shines right through. Yuuri didn't think he could fall in love again. But he does. Afternoon light making his boyfriend glow as he sweats nervously, frantically massaging a lather into the kid's head.

While Yuri does feel the pressure, does hear the voices, does smell the fruits of the forest. He isn't quite... there. Soap suds and a soothing temperature, instead he's in the ocean in the Summer. Cold river water clinging to his ankles in the Autumn, fishing upstream. Then late at night, shaking in his drenched sheets. Hot drops that roll down his cheeks this time, landing in cupped palms. Hot tea gliding down a throat rubbed raw and abused. But in each flash of images, colours, sounds- a key figure is omitted.

Granddad... cut out like sticker outlines in newspaper clippings. Shadow of a presence. Big footprints that had stomped in the sand beside his smaller ones. A laughing giant that had pointed out the biggest fish. Hands that pressed cotton to his leaking eyes. A voice, kind, telling him not to worry, it was okay, these things happen. Asking him why he looked so rugged... so drained... is he sure he isn't the one dying instead?

Why does this keep happening? It feels like there's gaping, wide pitfalls in his head. Any stray thought leaves him tumbling into this all-encompassing abyss of webbed-up flashbacks. A map of his life, strung out in a messy, splatter of shit. He comes to when Viktor gently pours a jug of water over his hair- the action leaving him gasping for breath.

"It's only water, it's only water," he uses his other hand to keep it out of his eyes and he knows the temperature is fine. "Nearly done, you're okay Yurio." He's still just holding the sponge, no inclination of using it and shutting his eyes, Viktor takes it and gives his chest and back a quick wipe down.

Yuuri throws them over a towel, and when Viktor pulls his ex-pupil up- he's shaking like a leaf. Far too much to be confused for shivers, Viktor panics and his eyes practically cling to his boyfriend's. "Go and get a big glass of water," Yuuri swaps his place and lowers Yuri to the bathmat, now curled in a towel and barely reacting except for intense trembling.

"Yuri, it's me. What do you need?" he asks, wrapping another towel over his legs until he's like a burrito of fabrics. Mumbling numbly, Yuuri has to ask him to repeat himself several times before he makes out a, "Potassium or something."

Perplexed, Yuuri shouts, "Viktor... a- a banana too!" and peels back the teenager's soaked hair from his ashen face. It's a strange request but the boy understands his body better than either of them.

"Here," Viktor holds it out and stands up, hands on his hips. Hair damp. Dress shirt splattered with vomit and suds. Knees and calves drenched. Yuuri looks up for a split second. Beautiful, he thinks. Looking away at once, "Thank you," he utters.

Yuri guzzles down the water and Yuuri has to stop him at intervals so the situation doesn't reoccur, tearing off quarters of the fruit until both are done. Ten minutes later, his hands aren't shaking as bad and he allows Yuuri to pull Viktor's over-sized clothes over his head.

A mountain climbed, the two want to collapse once it's over. "Come and sit on the sofa and I'll change the sheets," Yuuri lightly towel-drys his hair. If Yuri was taking any of this in, the bastard towel would be shoved in his mouth, and Viktor just may run.

 

Yakov is wandering around like a strange, senile, old geezer. Slugging back coffee and wishing he could just openly smoke. Viktor had smiled dangerously at the suggestion.

"Consider it and say goodbye to your fingers," he had gave Yakov a friendly pat on the arm as he passed. Yakov had grumbled and grouched. However, he needed all his fingers to flip Viktor off behind his back.

"Yurachkta," he says. A little stunned at the zesty teen a shell, swamped in clothes tailored for someone a couple of feet taller and bit more built. "How are you?" he sits beside him but his very existence is ignored leading to a vaguely awkward, cloying tension cloud.

No response, Yakov shuffles about like a sack of potatoes. It's unnerving him- the mouthy brat being so silent. Itchy awkwardness finally getting under his skin

Giving his student a pat on the arm, he decides he'll make the trek down all those flights of stairs after all. Withdrawal licking jittery stripes down his empty lungs.

Yuuri has the sheets smelling like fresh breeze again and Viktor pulls out a carton of juice. "Here," he passes a glass to Yuri before looking around, cupboards unfamiliar after months of travelling.

Yuuri has returned, hands on his hips and cheeks flushed red, like he's been running a marathon. Yuri barely glances up before slinking back off to the now clean bed. Words form, a hand reaching out, Viktor coaxes them away with a touch on his chest.

"Don't," he utters. "Help me cook something a little easier on the stomach. I don't know what I'm doing." Yuuri wraps hands around his waist, chin on his shoulder as they mix some kind of soup. Bitten lips pepper Viktor's open neck with thank-yous and a hand rubs i-love-yous on the goosebumps of his tummy.

 

Fatigue hits again like rattling weights in his bones. Heavy, coarse and sliding back and forth within the capsule of his body as he moves. God, he just wants to sleep for weeks. Close his eyes until everything is okay again. Back to when the room doesn't smell like air-freshener and the sheets don't curl softly around his toes.

He wants stale air and cig smoke; rough sheets and cold blankets that are layered on heavy for heat; ancient, flowery curtains and a TV that never works. He wants all of... that. He wants his home back. The one he's used to. Throwing his bag under the stairs when he comes home, and the voice that scolds him to pick it up properly.

Time passes by so strangely when he isn't numb and dead to the world. If he's stuck in his head, the hours roll by. But when he sits up in a bed Yuuri and Viktor have likely fucked in, and looks at the disgusting inspiring quotes on the walls, and chic plants, and windows splaying in city light... it feels like every second is aging him.

Youthful, bright eyes turning dull. Smooth, flushed skin going pallid and strained. Agile, excited movements become exhausted and weary.

There goes the skating.

Ha. It's merely an afterthought. No real devastation comes with that revelation. Why on Earth would he even think of skating now? When there's not one person in this world he can share it with.

Dreams: podiums, gold medals, trophies hanging like Viktor's weighty nooses around their living room. Big, expensive holidays and Christmas presents his granddad cheers at. Poof, poof, poof. Taking his first... crush, around to meet his granddad and snickering at the embarrassing interaction. Poof. Graduations and weddings and hands to hold when he's sick. Poof, poof, poof.

He didn't realise how integrated his family was to his very core until it had been ripped away from him. His entire future had been orbitting around this idiot of a man. Every last single detail... and now he had gone and just... died.

No. It wasn't right to think about his granddad in such a way.

He had been taken away. A greedy, selfish bastard of a thing had sucked him right off this Earth for themselves. They had saw the rare, true goodness in him and had wanted it for themselves.

"It's a bit gentler on your system this time," he jumps when he looks up to Yuuri crouching over, expectant layered with this twinkly hope. Bowl of soup in hand, he gives a spoon and sits cross-legged on the bed beside him.

Feeling like he has an audience, Yuri picks up the spoon slowly and takes tiny spoons at the edges. Thick, spicy and creamy. It's nice, he guesses. But his stomach aches... a pain to be made bulging and straining. He swallows another spoon rapidly to quell down that particular panic, mentally telling himself not to just tip the whole bowl back in one go.

"Let's watch a movie, Yurio. I know it's a little silly but you can get out of your own head for a little bit," he smiles gently, properly trying to help instead of papery gestures to ease his own feelings. But still, Yuri wants to scream. How the fuck do you get out of your own head? It's a prison. There is no fucking escape.

No answer. There's no energy left in his cells to waste with meaningless noise. "I'll go get you some more, okay?" Yuuri says and they both notice the bowl is empty. He thinks nothing of it and Yuri envies the lack of shackles, or iron chains pinned to every thought. "Viktor poured some juice but it's a little strange... you might like it though."

At the ramblings, Yuri tunes out fully to a white-noise static. Peace, calm, quiet. And the flames slowly licking at his brain, turning every shred of light to smoky ashes.

They watch a movie on Viktor's iPad, under the duvet with Yakov sent on home with a heavy brow in tow. Yuri falls asleep in the first five minutes, nose bumping the screen of the device making the other two glance down at him.

"Wrecked tired," Yuuri combs back his blonde hair and straightens his head up so he won't wake up with a killed neck. Viktor hums in agreement and puts the iPad a little quieter, reaching under the covers and holding his boyfriend's hand.

 

On this second night, they aren't blessed with the previous night's long, log-like state of unconsciousness. Viktor is woke by a kick to the ribs and a crippling... scream.

Yuuri's glasses are sent flailing, the man himself looking drunk when he sits up all confused. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Yuri is muttering in Russian and pulling at his strands, harder with every word.

Sleep-walking or zombie-convert, they don't know as he suddenly tears himself out of the wrapped duvet and clambers into the kitchen. Stumbled, tripping panic.

Yuuri, red-eyes and about to place sleep-warmed toes on the cold floor- Viktor tugs him to lie down. "It's my house. I demand you lie down and rest," and he peels his own knackered body up to trail after.

"Yurio," he calls out, fumbling blindly in the dark. "Where are you?"

When he reaches the kitchen, a figure is curled into a blank shadow beside the light of the window. Shivering like a stray dog, broken and unruly, he kneels down with careful fingertips and a hushing voice.

"Come on, come back to bed," he rubs at the flesh along his spine. Vibrations thud through with such vigor... surely it is unnatural. "You'll catch your death. It's pretty cold out here."

Why? why? why? Yuri feels like his eardrums are screaming back and forth between eachother. Aching arguments that are making his brain feel like it's playing piggy in the middle.

Crippling, umistakeable feeling rooting onto his chest. Thick and slimy, and it refuses to move despite how much he scrubs red lines onto his chest.

Guilt.

It's the worst... it just doesn't go. It doesn't make his eyes stream teary rivers, like the heartbreak does. It doesn't make his blood boil and his muscles quake, like the anger does. It just sits in the cavity of his chest like gloopy tarmac. Taking up all of the space. Leaving no room for any other thoughts... feelings... anything.

"What is it, Yuri?" Viktor pulls him to sit on the floor so he's not teetering on the edge by crunched up toes. He feels his vocal chords rumbling, unsure of what sounds they are making.

"I let him die," Viktor manages to make out, a broken croak in between gasps. "I let him go... all because of a stupid competition."

"Yurio, love, what are you talking about?" he pulls the mesh of limbs towards him, the teenager flopping his head onto Viktor's chest. "You didn't do anything of the sort."

"I didn't see what was happening," he says, ever increasing in pitch. That almost-crying tone his voice takes on before it combusts.

Blood and coughing and wheezing at night. Headaches and blue lips and pain so bad his eyes water. Why didn't he just open up his fucking goddamn eyes and see?

"There's nothing you could have done, sweetie," he grabs at the moody kid's forearm; he sounds in disarray, hurt and sympathy stabbing in through the holes of his composure and licking out every ounce of his cool reputation. "You are so young... you shouldn't even be thinking like that."

"I didn't care enough about him," he lets out a muffled sob, "Not when it mattered... not when he needed me!"

Fuck, fuck, fuck. "You know that's a lie. Everyone knows you thought the world of your grandfather, and he loved you to bits!"

"I let him down, Viktor," he splutters tears onto his grey t-shirt, face smushed into it with a snot, sweat combo which he's sure Viktor will grimace at tomorrow. "I killed the only person I'll ever love... and now I have noone... and- and it's all my fault!"

Viktor is inexperienced with the emotions of others. Viktor is especially inexperienced with the emotions of grieving teenagers thrusting the blame of a blameless death onto themselves.

"You are remarkable Yuri, but not even you could give someone such a horrible disease," he squeezes the kid with both arms, hoping it came out the way he intended. "I can't do this- I- I can't-" Viktor puts a gentle hand over his mouth, swiping away all the tears and snot with his sleeve.

"You aren't doing this on your own though, love. Me and Yuuri, and even Yakov... we're here for you. We might seem about as useless as Yakov's Stop-Smoking kit... but we're trying... and we'll keep trying. I promise."

Yuri lets out a wet, little, mouse-like sniff.

But he's listening.

"I don't want to hear you talk like that again," he pretends to scold, "-because I know Granddad Plisetsky, and he will swoop back down to give you a clip round the ear for such."

His collected breath hitches, sending a whole new wave of tears down past his clenched teeth, all the way to his neck. "I want that. I want him back. I want him now... even if I have to go find him."

"I know, I know," Viktor hushes, swaying him lightly, side to side against his chest. "I felt exactly the same way when my father died." Yuri looks up at him, hair plastered in soaking strands against his cheeks. "I don't talk much about it... but... my whole world collapsed. Sometimes I still feel like it is. But lots of little things make it better. You might never get back what you had... but you can make good of what you do have."

"When?" he asks, not really wanting to ask. Yuri hardly feels in the right frame of mind to comfort Viktor if that's what he needs.

"Before I cut my hair," he smiles to himself, unseen in the dark. "I'm sure my dad was glad... he always hated it anyway."

"You kept skating?" Viktor looks down in surprise. "Of course I did... it's what I love. I could never give it up. Feeling that loss- well, it only helped me perform even better. Emotions fuel art... everyone knows that."

Somewhere along the line, Yuri stopped listening and instead focused on his fingers digging into Viktor's biceps. His soft thump-thump of his heartbeat. Alive, flesh and blood, and mind colourfully vivid with thought. Deep under the fog in his own head, this roots itself within. Even after his own loss of a parent... Viktor is very much alive. Very much living. Enjoying every sweet inhalation of breath, even if sometimes the memories catch at his brain and they hurt in his chest.

"Come on, let's get up off the floor and catch a couple more hours before Yuuri is up and giving me more chores," Viktor grins, pulling them both up to stand while giving Yuri's face a subtle wipe-down. Despite every protest from his body not to... it makes the teen smile in the darkness.

When they crawl back into the blankets, Yuri passes out within the minute. He only wakes three times due to nightmares, Viktor getting him to stop screaming in less than thirty seconds- an improvement.

At around 4' o clock, Yuuri stirs and finds his boyfriend staring out the kitchen window with an ominous glass in his hands.

"I'm starting to worry you're an alcoholic," he says as a greeting, pulling his robe tighter to his cold body. Viktor starts. "Yakov wondered that years ago. I've cut down though."

"What are you thinking about?" he puts his hands around his boyfriend's hips and the city lights illuminate the shadows under his eyes. Hot vodka breath by his head. "Yuri. Life. Death."

"How much of that have you had?" he quirks an eyebrow behind at the decreasing bottle. "I'm being serious here," he mutters irritibly and, no pun intended, Yuuri sobers up.

"I know, I'm sorry Viktor. What do you want to talk about?" he kisses his boyfriend's neck as an apology.

"There's... there's no way the authorities are going to let you accept lawful responsibility for Yuri," he starts and Yuuri listens; so this was what him and Yakov have been discussing all day. "Why is that?"

"For a start you're not a citizen of this country... you are only twenty-three... you haven't known him all that long. Even if you are the best choice to be his legal guardian, things don't work well in your favour," he says simply. "I've been thinking about signing the papers myself."

Yuuri goes quiet. Body grows tense. "Are you sure? Do you understand how much of a responsibility this is..." Cloying guilt sticks inside at his ribs. "If you're just doing this to please me... then don't."

Viktor grabs at the hand around his waist and holds on tight. "I'm not." Yuuri looks unsure. "I mean it. I want to do this... I mean, I don't know if the authorities will even agree. But I am old enough, have no criminal record, have known Yuri for most of his life...and- and I think he might agree."

Stars light up in Yuuri's eyes. "You think so?" It's like a flood of relief. The thought of Yuri going into care had tore chunks out of his heart.

"I can't say for certain... but I think he hates me a little less than before," Yuuri lets out a mess of a laugh, an endearing little squawky thing that makes Viktor want to fall on his knees with a ring.

"I really do love you, you know?" Viktor lies back against him, hot with alcohol and chest sore with all the memories and the feelings and the pain of the day.

"Yeah, I know. I love you too," he tugs his ridiculous boyfriend over to the sofa and they lie down, locked together like stringy spaghetti strands. Kisses smush somewhere in the middle, in between cupping hands and glowing eyes.

"You'll marry me someday, won't you?" Viktor kisses open-mouthed around his goose-bumped neck. "Ask me again when you're sober," Yuuri laughs and the silver-haired man flicks the serious-switch in a second. "I'm not drunk. I'm asking you."

"I- I know. I want you to ask me tomorrow anyway. I want to hear it again... I want to know you mean it. That you aren't asking me because you're confused, or scared, or feel like I'm going to leave you to deal with this all on your own," it makes the tears catch at his eyelashes and he hates himself for having such goddamn sensitive eyes.

"I'm not thinking any of that, you idiot," Viktor grabs his chin. "I want to wake up beside you every single day... with your head on my chest and a gold band on your finger."

"I... I want you to ask me tomorrow," he shuffles about, Viktor above him and he's trapping him in a vice. "I'll ask you every fucking day of the week if that's what it takes," Viktor snaps and climbs up off him, half-rejected and half-emotional.

"Okay," Yuuri utters.

They go back to bed and hold hands under the covers, Yuri is lying across the bottom this time. Viktor drifts off, blonde eyelashes spilling nimble shadows down his elegant cheekbones. Yuuri watches, brushing fingertips down smooth skin.

Did that really happen?

Did Viktor really just say he wanted to take legal responsibility of Yuri... and... and marry him? Yuuri's got to hand it to Russian vodka.

Whatever's in it must be some strong fucking shit indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *chest pains*
> 
> viktor deserves a gold star in my opinion.
> 
> please let me know what you think!! if you have had any thoughts/opinions/etc!! it makes my day to read you guys comments!!! :)x
> 
> EDIT: (you know you have issues when have to add 45 words to a random chapter so the word count looks pretty LMAO)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello guys! happy new year!  
> i can't literally register yoi is over. like.....s2 where u at?
> 
> i hope everyone had a nice holiday period. and holy crap.... 1028 KUDOS????? IS THIS THE REAL LIFE????? Honest to god, i am stunned and blown away anyone even reads my story. nevermind such an amazing response!!
> 
> thank you all so much!!
> 
> this chapter contains triggering material. i would advise caution if you might feel sensitive to topics such as child abuse, grief, or general mental instability.
> 
> its pretty disturbing at times i think im so sorry omg.
> 
> also in this yuri is in a pretty bad place. if you or anyone you know feels like this i would urge you to get medical help. you are never alone :)
> 
> keep yourself safe :) xxx

Several days have passed.

A spindly mesh of ivy, worming and entangling together in a blur that Yuri can barely remember. He recalls sitting up, sweaty and limbs aching from lack of movement; vaguely remembers walking into the kitchen each night and falling to his knees as heartbreak hits. Food and drink is pushed through cracked lips and he barely blinks as he swallows it down.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

[Hey, I am so sorry to hear about your grandfather. I hope you are okay.]

[Yuri, honey, I'm so sorry. You don't deserve this. I love you, and miss you. Talk to me whenever you need to xx.]

[Hello Yuri, this is Obatek. I got your number off a friend. I know it's not my place but I really hope you are okay. I'm so sorry to hear about your granddad.]

Who the fuck are these people?

Yuri slams his phone against the wall later that day. Pieces of iPhone scatter across Viktor's expensive carpet like pieces of shrapnel. Tweets after tweets after tweets. At last that fucking whistling bird will shut up. His eyelids feel heavy and he pictures wringing its squawking neck.

"Yuri," he jolts at a knock on his part-time bedroom door. Yuuri steps in timidly- a kind of mouse-like tiptoe he has taken on as if Yuri is a starved lion or something. "What?" he's staring at his smashed iPhone screen with a dissociated numbness. A single finger traces over the webs and cracks.

"Me and Viktor were talking-" they always fucking were yapping on about something or another. "We thought it might be a good idea to get out of the flat for a bit... go for a walk, or a drive. Get some fresh air."

Yuri drops his phone with a little thud and rolls his eyes up to bore into the sweating man before him. "I'd rather not," he says instead of his first choice of 'I'd rather gouge my own eyeballs out'. He waits as the older man twitches and fidgets and inevitably gives up, leaving him to sit on the floor.

Curtains pulled, stale air, bed unmade. Tangles and grease in his hair, clothes that haven't been changed in who knows how long. God, he doesn't even have it in him to feel disgusting. He wakes up... and he exists. He sits staring at these four walls until he feels tired enough to go back to sleep.

Or he paces, and paces, and paces, until his feet are sore and his muscles are fizzing with restless anxiety. He needs to get up and move and run away from the volcano in his stomach. During these hours, he screams. He curses. He punches the walls until his knuckles are swollen and bleeding and Yuuri is threatening to take him to a hospital.

Speaking of which, for someone so young, Yuuri is looking terribly old. He carries ten-ton weight bags under his eyes and creases that look sewn into his pallid skin. Viktor is an unflappable man but even he is starting to look stressed- desperate and stressed. Please Yuri, talk to us. Wake up. Watch some TV with us. Demands after demands after demands. Doesn't he realise Yuri barely has the fucking energy to sit up, never mind contribute to these trivial life happenings.

The worst thing is, he can't even summon up that fiery hate inside of him when he thinks of those smug bastards. God, how much he wants to despise them, to feel nothing but hate in his very core.

But he can't.

He's looking at Yuuri and he wants to have back what he once did. He wishes he wanted to punch him, or scream at him, anything at all. Now... all he feels is this weird kind of empty. Hollow and scooped out. Yet completely stuffed up with all sorts of mysterious things that there's no room for his ever-comfortable Yuuri/Viktor hate.

"Viktor proposed to me," Yuuri tells him later that night when they are staring at the ceiling. Yuri wishes he was that tiny crack of plaster along the wall. Insignificant and almost invisible. "I told him I'd think about it... but what's your opinion?" he turns on his side and twists his mouth up.

What does he look like? Oprah? How the fuck would he know? Or even care for that matter. But he exhales. Words... words. His little vocabulary book is running on empty these days.

"I don't know."

Yuuri doesn't look frustrated or annoyed, he just nods like he'd expected that. "Either do I. We haven't talked much about it since... I'm worried," he stretches his arms above his head and risks a glance at the teenager.

Yuri catches his gaze like a dog with a bone. He holds it between his teeth and doesn't let go for will or whim, stubbornly chewing at it until Yuuri bubbles sweat on his forehead and darts his eyes away.

He swallows loudly, a visible tension casting uneasy muscle spasms in his feigned-casual movements. It's like he's trying to yawn his way into another dimension, stretch himself past the stars.

"There's something else I wanted to talk to yoou about Yuri," he tries not to let his voice quake, and he almost succeeds. But when you've had several days to stew in your own brain with the only external stimulus being Viktor and Yuuri- you begin to pick up and absorb in their quirks.

He nods for him to continue, returning his eyes back on the wall ahead.

"Your granddad's funeral is coming up... I think there are some things you might want to decide on yourself," he touches light fingertips against his shoulder.

Yes. The funeral. The last time he will get to see his granddad before they stuff him down under soil and dirt. It should have hit him like a bag of bricks but he simply lets it wash through one ear, and out the other.

Okay.

"Is there any flowers your granddad would have wanted? Any particular songs?" Yuuri feels like this is the moral equivalent to strangling cats. Asking a fucking fifteen year old to pick flowers for his guardian's funeral... it feels so wrong. "I'm sorry to ask you this. I just want you to know you have a say in everything. He was your granddad."

Was? Yuri flinches like he has been burned, and it doesn't go unnoticed. So now that his granddad is dead... he has lost his right to be a legit family member? Go fuck yourself, he wants to say. His lips don't move. Okay, he takes back what he said earlier... maybe that hatred can be stirred back up easily enough after all.

"Shit... Yuri, I'm sorry!" he looks like his features have just combusted with panic, for a man already strung too tight with anxiety, it probably is a cause for concern. "I didn't- I don't mean it like that!"

Nodding, he feels greasy strands graze his cheeks. "Okay," Yuuri looks about a million times worse. "I'm really sorry, Yuri. Your granddad will always be your granddad, no matter what."

Shut up. Please. Yuuri tries to scoop him into some sort of hug but he's having none of it. The actual thought of another human touching him makes his skin full-body cringe, shiver infestations erupting all over.

"He would want it simple. No fuss. He would want it to be with a priest." Yuri says quietly and the dark-haired man nods. This he knows. It was his request that he was to be buried within his religion.

"Is there anything you would like to add?" he asks, sweeping his damp hair back with hands like jelly. "No," Yuri replies, and that is the end of that.

Viktor rattles the door when he enters the flat and they hear him dump bags onto the counter. "Shit, shit, shit!" they hear muffled, and then a smash of a glass jar. Yuuri rolls his eyes fondly and stands up, pushing at his back like an old man. "I'd better go and see what he's broke."

 

Yuri bursts in with a bang that makes the couple leap apart from their cuddled-heap. "I want a shower," he states, monotone and expressionless. Viktor looks at Yuuri, Yuuri looks at Viktor. It's probably them being silly, they know telepathically. But is it safe to leave him alone in a locked room? His hands are already violet with red and blues.

"Okay, thats's no problem. I'll show you how to control the temperatures and pressures," Viktor stands to attention, shooting him a gentle smile that he usually only saves for Yuuri. But has now extended to the younger Russian.

However, they don't get that far.

Yuri throws clothes left, right and sideways out of his duffel bag. There's a manic demon fitting nicely along the outline of his form, shaking his frantic limbs around and squeezing at his neck. It chokes tighter and tighter until his eyes are going black and he's clawing red lines for it to just get off.

Where the fuck is it? He empties out the bag onto the floor and sweeps all the covers off the bed. It falls in a heap and he finds it takes his knees along with it. On all fours, he's scrabbling under the bed, tossing shit off the shelves even though his brain is whispering it's not here... it's not here.

"Yuri?"

Bleeding out sweat and lungs that are being squeezed by iron fists. Again and again. Until Yuuri... or Viktor... or God... or someone is shaking him like a ragdoll and his head is banging off the back of his neck.

"I can't find it,"

"Find what?" he hears softly spoken, words too silky, too much like fluffy, cotton clouds that it's certainly Yuuri. "My hoody," he grabs at his own sleeves and they just aren't right. An expensive buy from a branded store in some city, at some competition. Generic and it's not red. It doesn't have anxious-pulled threads, bitten-drawstrings or bleach stains around the hem. His granddad didn't buy it for him.

"It's okay," he breathes out in relief and his eyes pinch up in a way that says, 'Jesus, Yuri. You've really cracked this time.'

"No!" he snaps, a sudden burst of emotion resuscitating his previously hollow tone. "It's not fucking okay!" his teeth are bared protectively, a feral animal that's ready to sink his teeth into raw flesh if the man speaks one more pathetic word.

"We'll go and get it," Yuuri clutches his shoulders and tries to pull him down from the cliff he's suddenly leapt upon. Crumb teeters off, landing down pearly rocks and glazed waters with a seductive splash. "Yuri, breathe. Viktor will drive. If you want your hoody, we will find it."

How long has he been like this? Muscles pinched so tight, when he breathes- he hears them sigh with relief. Lactate pumping inside. Sore and starved. Lines wriggle around his eyes from how long he's held them wide, wide open with burning matchsticks. "Okay?" Yuuri asks him again with a concern that the teen wants to scrub away like an irritating stain.

"It's at my granddad's," he says and the older man just nods like a bobble head. "I know, if you want... Viktor can just go on his own. You can stay here with me." Yuri can feel his pity pooling around them both, soaking through and mingling with the grease and sweat on his skin.

"I can go," he pulls himself from the other skater with a fury that feels implanted. He can't sit in a cell and let his brain waste away. He can't run away and leave granddad to rot in a morgue somewhere.

 

Viktor and Yuuri gape as he darts off into a storm that splatters on weeping windscreen wipers, yelling voicelessly out into a dingy neighbourhood that makes the junkies round the side jump. Sneakers bounce and squeak on every step as Yuri thunders up them.

There's a cloudy mist in his chest, transparently blue and so foggy it muffles out that tiny bit of sanity he had pottering around. He's nearly on his floor. Red graffiti lines of curses and what he assumes are crude references, old bottles by the landing, a warning sign for no smoking- as to which someone has scribbled out the 'NO'.

Granddad. It's his cheap, little flat he bought last minute when he took Yuri in. Much smaller than the house the child grew up in, but safer by far and he could sleep at night without worrying his grandchild was going to be battered to death. Dingy, you can hear the neighbours when the argue, but granddad had spruced up the inside and fell in love with it too much to leave, even when he did gather up a bit of excess pocket change.

Strings of thought snap at his brain, memories suffocating out the present time of running until he sweats. "Granddad! Look at the cool drawing!" he tugs at the big, calloused hand in his own, much smaller one. "Oh-" his granddad puts a hand over his face and makes him look away. "Never you mind that," he laughs gruffly and Yuri frowned at the weird graffiti every day after that until he got a bit older.

It always takes a couple of times with the key in the door, something that has made his granddad madder than mad more times than he can count on both hands. It sticks and jams, and doesn't locks, and locks so fervently they're both standing outside dripping rain onto the ground for far too long.

Creaky bones giving way, it opens with a pained hiss. Darkness is sprawled across the room and he closes his eyes. It's okay, because he's home at last.

His living room, that doesn't still stink of lemon cleaner. His sofa, that's still full of newspapers and thick coats. His kitchen, that has two used mugs on the counter, two used dinner plates, two sets of utensils.

"Granddad?" he calls out to the dark. He's just home from a competition somewhere and it was a late flight. Yes, that sounds right. The lights are off and the dishes are done because it's three in the morning. Of course his granddad is in bed. He doesn't flick on the light switch and trips over his feet to his bedroom.

"Which room is it?" Viktor is frantic. "I don't know!" Yuuri is jogging alongside him. "What do you mean you don't know?" he says with an irritation that's the closest thing to an argument that they've had throughout their newly born relationship.

Shhhh, he tells himself, elbow deep in clothes not worn for months. You are going to wake up granddad and he will chew your ear off. Red fabric tumbles out and wiggles jazz-hands up at him with a sickly grin. Ta-da! He pounces on it like a wolf, clutching it between desperate fingers like a comfort-blanket. It purrs at him and he sheds his current skin and sucks in its scent like a drug.

He's back. Yuri's back. It's okay. Everything is okay again because he's home.

"It ended in a three, I know that!" Yuuri feels a stitch coming out, nipping at his side. Or maybe the pain is just Viktor being a massive asshole. "Great help, thanks Yuuri. That could be all of a million-and-three."

"Stop being so- so childish!" he stops, flustered and folding his arms to stare with confused hurt at his boyfriend. Now wasn't a time for a domestic. "I'm being no such thing," Viktor stops to shoot him a positively sulky look. This isn't about the room number, is it?

"What's wrong?" he asks reluctantly, eyes squinting with unease at this whole mess of pure shit. "Why would anything be wrong?" Viktor lets out a little sarcastic laugh and it suddenly hits Yuuri that Viktor really hasn't looked him in the eye since his middle-of-the-night proposal.

Red eyes stare out at every corner of the room. Forget being the predator, Yuri is strung up, tied down, swinging from the ceiling like a tiny mouse for the beasts. Claws and teeth, saliva pooling and bloodthirsty venom. They don't care if this is his territory. He is fucking theirs. Yuri is backed into the corner, his hoody like a flag for the raging bulls, a waft of sweet dinner for the hungry sharks.

"Granddad!" he screams out again. It's those nightmares all coming back again. One he had when he was about eleven and sickly feverish and high on life. "Please don't eat me!" he remembers screaming at his hallucinations, I'm too young to die, he had thought. He's not too sure he shares the same sentiment now, but he doesn't want the pain of being torn from limb to limb.

They have heavy breaths, hot on his goosebumped skin, and that's just fucking it for him. He bolts through their shadows and feels them nipping and clawing at his heels as he thump-thump-thumps on his granddad's door, not waiting for an answer.

"I had the worst nightmare," he coughs out and he's not sure if it's cold sweat or ugly tears spluttering down his cheeks. "Granddad, wake up- it was one where you'd died."

The lump of duvet is silently still, always such a fucking deep sleeper. He closes his eyes tight and lets his body recover. Thought strings are tangled and glittery; a messy, spaghetti swimming pool in his skull.

He laughs.

Quietly, a giggle at first. High pitched and breathless with relief. Before it morphs, like a human experiment gone wrong, a mutated, slimy-green cannibal of a thing that thunders at its metal confines. Squawking and unhinged, manic cackling that goes on and on. "Dead?" he just laughs harder. Oh granddad, you'll find this so fucking funny when you wake up.

As if a tough man like you can be wiped away by something so small. As if a miniscule disease could suck away your soul like the last bit of juice in a glass. It was ridiculous of us all to even consider the fact that you just be plopped away so easily. You always said you can't kill the wicked. And then you'd laugh and pretend it didn't give you chest pains.

"Oh God," Yuri wipes away the damp at the corner of his eyes. Crouched into a ball by the door- the beasts are still out there after all. "You had us all fooled, you bastard!"

This, he concedes, is the only appropriate time to curse at his granddad.

"Yuuri had me picking your fucking funeral flowers!" he splutters at his granddad, curled up on the bed under the covers. It sets him off laughing again. "I really thought for a while there that you really weren't coming back," he grins, teeth not clenched together, hands not shaking so hard he has to sit on them.

"Granddad," his voice sounds weird, even to his own ears. "I know you're not sleeping- pranks over old man. You've lost this round. I've just got too smart for you!" he unfolds to stretch up on his feet.

"Now- now isn't the time to talk about this," Viktor says, swallowing away a blush that rises when some tenants poke their heads out to see what the commotion with these two strangers is all about. "Just think of the room number."

"I think... I think it might have been twenty-three," he buries his fingers into the fleshy grey matter, rooting around for any scrap he can. "Well come on then!" Viktor tugs at his arm.

"Why are you being so quiet?" Yuri feels like he, in contrast, is being so goddamn loud. Screaming out into some kind of abyss, rather than just a dark bedroom. He takes peculiarly apprehensive steps over to where his granddad lies- he's not snoring. That's what's wrong.

"This isn't funny anymore!" he pulls back the thick duvet and his granddad is just a pile of clothes Yuuri and Viktor forgot to put away.

Those strings in his head snap, delicate spiderwebs that break away with the pad of a fingertip. No. Wait- no. He grabs at the offending clothes, squeezing them and his eyelids tight in hopes that things will return to reality. An illusion, an optical illusion that makes his head swirl, nausea build, and leaves him seeing little coloured patterns on his corneas no matter where he looks.

Caution tape wires itself around his head, yellow and black between the fleshy pulses of brain and entangling itself between partings of blonde hair. Oh fuck. It's not going away. "I had a really bad nightmare," he pleads again, on his knees by bed and elbows digging into a worn mattress. It still smells like home.

He'd take anything right now. Soak up any morsel he could get. A final crooked grin, a breathy laugh, a comforting squeeze on his shoulder. Meteors crash into his fragile chest. Bones crush into gritty powder, white like cocaine onto the shadows below. He would slice off an arm for a final goodbye, saw off both for one last conversation. Hell, he would die for one last day with his granddad. He would enjoy every last second of it if only he could.

God, are you listening? I'll make you a deal-

He pants, nails digging into the smooth skin under his hoody sleeves. Racetrack marks of red worming backwards and forwards down the planes.

Satan, are you listening? I'll do anything-

For honestly the first time in his life, he wants his mother. Even if she is a useless excuse for the word. Even if she does always reek of alcohol. Even if she does beat him until he bruises, slurring into his ear that perhaps it would be better if he hadn't been born. Perhaps his father wouldn't have left her if he hadn't have been conceived. Jagged, broken glass is pointed at his neck once more and he's screaming and choking tears and snot.

The door never opens and his granddad never saves him. Instead she plunges it in and the pain shoots up his spine, oily, red blood plunging and spluttering out at an alarming rate. "He's dead," he tells her; he's not seen the woman in years but what what's that got to do with anything. She pulls out the weapon and he should be dead too; they forget it all and she pulls him to her chest.

She will kill him one day, he's too young to think this really. But he's smart enough to register simple facts. However, he's not overly bothered. She's flesh and blood and at least fifty-percent granddad. He'll clutch at straws if he needs to get by.

"Hypocritical bastard!" she would scream- it surely had hurt her throat. "Who is he to interfere in my life?" Yuri wants to cover his ears but this time he revels in it. You don't talk ill of the dead. The worst his mother talks of granddad, the less likely it is that he's gone. "He doesn't know how hard it is raising a child single-handedly!"

You can stop now, he wants to chip in. But he doesn't want her to hurt him again. His skin is so sore already. Blood still leaks out of his fatal wound. The door still never opens. His granddad is still fucking dead.

He hopes she's happy. He hopes she's laughing that scary laugh, that sometimes Yuri does by accident and it makes him hate himself a little every time. She did this to granddad. If only she had actually tried to not be as much of a fuck-up. Or if only she had hid it a little better, Yuri would take that. Maybe then granddad would have been fine.

This time his granddad does burst in, towering above him and pulling his abusive mother away from him in an eruption of cursings, and a panic that looks foreign on the sturdy man's face. "Get off!" she screams demonically. Instead of crumpling, she whips blonde hair around and instead slices the glass across his granddad's exposed throat.

"No!" he cries, hugging at his trouser leg and he splutters out lungs, red and bloody at their feet. It twitches, veins bulging. "Look what you've done!" his mother screams at him, shaking him and spitting into his face.

His hands grow cold. It's like he's a movie- the scene suddenly paused. That's right, realisation floods like a thick oil spill in clear ocean waters. He did this. It's his fault.

"You are his mother! You are supposed to be looking after him!" his granddad had actually cried, tears tripping down his wrinkled face. It's the first time Yuri had seen him look anything other than chuffed.

Instead, he hears the words in his mother's banshee-tone making his earsdrums bleed. "You are his grandson! You were supposed to look after him!" she howls, the words are vampires, snakes, ghouls, biting into his skin and sucking out the life. She's right. All those times he didn't do what he was told, didn't clean his room, complained that his granddad was being a nag.

Maybe he had snapped the bottle off his mother and done the job himself. Maybe he had plunged it in again and again. Maybe living with someone as tiresome as him had made disease mutate in his granddad's lungs.

He looks up at her bloodshot eyes, blonde hair that's greasy and matted. Hands shaking with an anger that's always been there, even before she turned to the drink. For a moment, he really hopes she has choked on her own vomit. How could she have a dad as good as his granddad and not cherish every single day?

"What the-" Yuuri and Viktor stumble into a darkened bedroom. It's not a scene they're not acquainted with.

You did this, you did this. She tells him again and again until she's possesed his vocal chords and it's him saying the words. Give him back, he pleads God. I wasn't ready. I'm not ready to live alone. She swaps sides and holds onto his shouler like an eagle on its prey.

"You bitch!" he screams, diving with hands at her neck and his head reaches way past her hip. They're head on head, which didn't seem unusual until Viktor is screaming, "Yuuri!" and roughly grabbing him away from his stunned boyfriend.

Cold water is dunked on his head. Flushes of ice and he falls, a sobbing, desperate mess at their feet. Oh god, what has he done? "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" he cries and he doesn't deserve the forgiveness and kindness Yuuri shows. "I know," he kisses his temple and Yuri can hear the man's shaky breathing.

"I think I'm going crazy, Yuuri," he croaks out, a last-chance grasp, a pleading admission that makes tears well up in Yuuri's eyes. "You're not going crazy, I promise you."

"I can't live like this... I- I just want him back!"

Yuuri can't say anything to that. There's no words left. No empty promises or blankets of reassurance. Grief isn't a smear of paint that can be washed away with time. It's not a temporary emotion. It's a messy cycle of states that fuck you up until you can accept that they just aren't coming back.

But that doesn't mean Yuri will always feel this particular kind of pain, so raw it makes his rationality dry up like the desert. This too, will pass. Yuuri doesn't know the ins-and-outs, but he's sure life hasn't been wonderfully kind to the kid. But he is resilient... and strong, and with some help, he can learn to carry this pain too. No matter how heavy it will weigh on him.

They take him home and he doesn't bother to shower. He climbs back into bed and begs for sleep. When it takes him, he holds on and hopes it never lets go.

 

"Should we call for a doctor tomorrow?" Viktor is talking serious around a nearly-empty bottle of vodka. It's a possibility neither had wanted to consider. "I'm not qualified to deal with this."

"I don't know Viktor," he flops down onto the breakfast barstool, head in his hands like a defeated man after battle. The fatigue feels like he really has been to war. "I just don't know what to do anymore."

"His little head is completely screwed up," Viktor takes small sips. "We'll see what Yakov says tomorrow." Upon seeing his boyfriend looking so broken, guilt hits him like a truck. "Look love, I'm sorry for arguing with you earlier."

Yuuri opens his mouth to speak, but Viktor cuts him off with the wave of a hand. "No, listen. You have enough pressure without me sulking over something like this. It wasn't the right time to ask you to make a decision like that."

Silver hair cuts across Viktor's face like a zebra-crossing. "So you really meant it?" Yuuri chokes up and Viktor's head shoots up. "Of course I meant it, idiot. I wouldn't ask something like that if I didn't mean it."

It's not exactly the most romantic marriage proposal.

"O-okay. I'm saying yes. I want to marry you, Viktor. Someday, when the time is right, I want to be your husband," Yuuri looks down at the black marble, his trembling expression glittering back up at him.

However, this time, the vodka sits sourly in Viktor's mouth. He lets doubt tilt his eyebrows. "Are you only saying this to make me feel better? Or because everything today, with Yuri, has freaked you out?"

"Viktor-"

"Because we don't have to be married, Yuuri. It isn't a necessity. I'm happy to remain whatever way you are comfortable with. The situation with Yuri will not change our relationship. I want to sign those papers, but I will take on that responsibility with or without you in my life," he is speaking honestly, and pink and flushed, tears at the corners of his eyes. It's an image that Yuuri will never be able to unsee.

"I love you, that... that will never change," Yuuri catches the man's hand before he pops a blood vessel from talking. "Viktor-"

"Please shut up," he shakes his head, tiny droplets beading on the counter as they fall. "I have said yes. We are getting married and you are going to make me the happiest man alive."

They don't kiss. But they link hands, fingers finding the space between across the worktop and Viktor pulls him into a crushing hug.

"I will, I promise."

 

A middle-aged lady with a tight bun, painted lips and a posture that holds confidence clip-clops into the flat. She asks to speak with Yakov and Viktor. It's strange, the air she carries in with her, and Yuri stares at her, cereal spoon dangling out of his mouth.

"Right this way," Viktor speaks in a clipped tone and leads her into the sitting room. Yuri wants to say something but guilt is clinging heavily to his every movement; he can barely even look Yuuri in the eye without hating himself so intensely... it burns.

"Why don't we go out for a little while when you're finished?" he says it with his usual, warm and loving, selfless kindness. He wasn't asking though- it has something to do with that woman, Yuri knows. He swallows the mush and feels his heart constrict. He nods.

 

Side by side, they sit on a bench in the park. It's still cold, and a little snowy, but the sun is shining freshly and Yuuri made him wrap up warm. Birds chirp, pecking at discarded crumbs and flitting freely among green and blues, open clouds their targets. Yuri fixates on a little kid playing with a ball from afar- she's smiling ear to ear. It's making all of his body ache.

When it rolls down the bank, towards the lake, her mum and dad run after it but she doesn't break out and cry it a temper tantrum like most kids would do. Instead, she lets out a giggle and chases after them.

Yuuri follows his gaze but chooses to say nothing.

He hasn't spoke once today, after his breakdown yesterday. There's no end to how guilty he feels about the whole thing. Yuuri didn't deserve any of it. And there's only so much a kind-hearted guy like that can take before Yuri posions him, breaks him down to smithereens... and he can't let that happen.

"I'm so sorry," he breaks his sponsored silence with a husky splutter. Like the scum he is, he wants to fall to his feet and beg for his forgiveness. Pray for mercy. (Beg him not to leave him as well). But Yuuri just looks stunned when he sees the teenager starting to choke up.

"What?" Yuri rubs at his face, suddenly embarrassed about losing it in public. But it's only really just hitting him how lost he would be without the idiot. A man with a family and future of his own, and yet he's wasting it trying to slot the broken pieces back into place and mend him up with a glue stick.

"My- my head's just all over the place. I didn't mean to hurt you yesterday," he scrubs at his cheeks with his sleeve, eyes rooted firmly on his shaking knees. "I'm so sorry."

"You didn't hurt me," Yuuri wraps an arm around him, pulling him in but he resists. He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve it. "I'm just fine, you don't have to apolgise for anything Yuri. I understand."

This only makes the tears come thicker and faster. God, he's turned into a right crybaby. It feels like he's never done. "No!" he snaps, pulling his sleeves up over his hands and pushing his face into them, elbows on his knees. "Stop staying stuff like that!"

"What do you want me to say?" he settles for a hand around the back of his neck, caressing gently. "Yell at me..." Yuri sniffles, "Hit me... say that you hate me."

"I don't know how to do any of those things," he pushes the teenager's hands away from his face, trying to coax out a smile. "My mother never taught me how." It doesn't work and he clenches his teeth, trying to pull away to no avail.

"I forgive you, if that's what you want to hear," he manages to let the teen rest his head on his shoulder, covering him from the staring humans. The blonde trembles sobs onto his shoulder. He doesn't deserve to be hugged by Yuuri. He doesn't deserve his forgiveness. "I know you didn't intentionally try to hurt me, and I know your head is just wrecked."

He stops struggling and goes limp, Yuuri holds him tight. "I want you to see a doctor, if you think that could help. But me and Viktor aren't going anywhere. We're your friends and we love you."

It's not right. It's not right. Yuri has given them no good reason to love him. He has been unruly, and wicked, and offensive. Why are they still here?

It's not like with his granddad... who technically had to love him. Obligatory, unconditional family love, but cherished all the same. But Yuuri and Viktor are nothing to him... so why the hell is he spurting this nonsense.

"You are going to be okay, Yuri," he brushes back blonde strands and watches the little kid and her parents, reunited once again with their ball. "You're going to be a success no matter what you do, I know it."

"Shut up," he growls weakly, embarrassed and Yuuri wipes his face and nose with his own sleeve. "That sounds a bit more like the Yuri I know."

The Yuri you knew is dead and gone, he wants to say. But tiny specks of light have begun to cut through chocolate irises and he doesn't want to be the twat to get rid of it. Twisting his face into what he hopes looks like a smile, he sits up.

"How about we go and get some lunch?" Yuuri grins at him like he has a secret. "Maybe some ice-cream too. But we'll not tell Viktor or he'll get jealous and sulky."

He lets Yuuri tug him up and their shoes crunch on the gravel on the path. "I said yes to Viktor... about the marriage thing," he admits after a couple of paces, like he's been bubbling to get it out. His face lights up with a little smile that Yuri is actually glad for, which makes an unusual change.

"It took you long enough," he smirks slightly. "Thought Viktor was gonna throw a tantrum at some stage."

The sudden burst of surprise unravels the dark-haired man, and he thinks it's nice too.

Another unusual change.

 

When they return, the outing has exhausted Yuri and he longs to do nothing more than curl up and sleep. Away from other people and away from his thoughts. But when they enter, the lady is only leaving and she gives him a look that will stick in his mind for day after.

"Who is she?" Viktor only gives him a smile, ruffling his hair like he's a fucking kid. "Never you mind, nosy. I'm having an affair, what of it?" Yuri wonders if Viktor actually thinks he's funny or if he just talks to make noise; to fill up the void.

He doesn't have the energy to call him out on it. She's probably a lawyer. It's probably something to do with his granddad if Viktor's dodging around the subject like a ticking bomb. Okay, he thinks, okay. Funeral planning, wills, legal issues. Lots to be done. His bones feel heavy and he reaches into his duffel bag.

A carrier bag of treats he bought when he was out, Yuuri safely out of sight in the bathroom. He unwraps them one at a time and chews them down so quickly, he barely tastes the sugar on his tongue.

 

"What is it?" Yuuri wraps his hands around his fiancé's (oh, fuck) waist and studies his face. "What's going on?" Viktor shakes his head and rests his forehead on the shorter man's shoulder.

"It's not good," Viktor sounds... hesitant. Yuuri massages between his shoulder blades, a sigh brimming on his lips. "I gathered that."

Viktor works his hands into his wooly cardigan, pulling it into vulnerable bunches in his hands. "They are going to keep Yuri in care for a little while, until the paperwork's finished up and the officials deem me a suitable and fit guardian."

Panic rattles at it's cage. Okay... a few days? A week? He feels his heart start to quicken its pace from a light jog to a run. "How long?" he asks. Viktor just shrugs. "I don't know, love. But they've worked with Yuri in the past, he's still on their records which might speed things up."

"What do you mean?"

He lets Viktor stroke his hair. "I think his mother might have been abusive in some way, whether by neglecting him or hurting him or something. And that's why he lived with his granddad for so long, with no contact from her," his voice sounds pained. "There's no father on his birth certificate so I assume he's not in the picture, maybe never has been."

He shakes his head. How a kid could have came from such a turbulent upbringing to be skating for millions, winning gold like it's nothing. It's a testimony for his person. Granddad Plisetsky wasn't lying when he said he was proud, he has every right to be. He has raised him remarkably.

"I don't think I'll be able to let them take him into care," Viktor admits, sleep deprivation making his face look less than its youthful self. "It doesn't bear thinking about... but I don't think we have much choice."

"Yakov says the press have been crawling all over us like leeches. Apparently news has leaked and it's hitting all the headlines," Viktor huffs, wrapping up in the safe net of support that Yuuri is offering.

"We'll worry about everything when it comes. Let's just take one day at a time for now," he peels away and hands Viktor his over-sweetened coffee, rubbing his forearm with a thumb.

"Let's just focus on today," Viktor nods like it's just that easy, and he can read Yuuri; he knows he is thinking the same.

When Yakov emerges, paperwork armed and a brow heavier than the Empire State Building, they flop down like sunken rocks on the sofa.

Both silently pleading, "What the fuck are we going to do?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah!! thank you so much for reading my story!! i can't believe how wonderful the feedback has been, i love hearing you guys thoughts and opinions. it makes what is already EPICLY FUN...SO MUCH BETTER!!!
> 
> and I lowkey apolgise for the mis-mash of writing. i think i wanted to show quite how mangled yuri's thoughts were so it might seem a bit confusing. i hope you guys enjoyed it!!!! :)x


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all SO much for the immense support for this story. never in a million years would I have expected such an overwhelming response!!
> 
> thank you for your kind patience in waiting for this chapter and for you all taking the time to read!!!!!
> 
> again there may be triggering content within this chapter!! please look after yourselves!!! :)x

When the day comes, it trickles in like a faulty tap at first. Drip. Monday. Drip. Tuesday. Until a screw bursts- the water spurting left, right and sideways and Yuri is standing in front of the mirror, trembling bones and clacking knees. 

Cold, black, tailored to perfection. The suit hugs his lithe limbs like tarmac, chaining him and making the bloodshot of his eyes look worse than a druggie's. It's only a day, he tells himself, but its lies and deception and convincing, convincing, convincing just to let yourself breathe for a little longer.

Rap, tap, tap. Viktor's knuckles construct a tune on the wooden door and he strides in with the face of a man going into battle. "Are you ready, sweetie?" Yuri would scoff at the pet name if he cared enough to bother. Would he ever be ready for such a thing? To send his life and his soul- his heart, his blood... his only family into the ground for the maggots to chew.

"Yes."

Viktor is ironed out with a flash of surprise up his spine as Yuri steels himself, pushing past.

 

Silence coats the car in a silky, suffocating cloak. Yakov coughs as he drives and everyone flinches like he's set off a nuclear bomb. Yuuri sits in the back with the teen and twitches nervously, knowing he should be saying or doing something- anything. Meaningful reassurances should be spilling from his tongue, clasping hands and rubbing thumbs over calloused knuckles. He can't though- it feels- feels... pointless. No, of course Yuri isn't alright. Asking him isn't going to make him feel any better.

Viktor is cracking at his knuckles one by one. It's taking all of Yuuri's willpower to resist the urge to thump his chair. Thumbs to forefingers and back round again to the other side; a nervous habit but it's snapping glass panes in the stuffy confines. 

Distraction in the form of breathing shadows on the picturesque images comes to, and he breathes clouds of carbon dioxide on the snow curling up on the side of the road. Whiskers of snowflakes splat against the window and rival the irritating snapping of Viktor giving himself arthritis. 

Yuri, hands pushed under his thighs, lets the view fade to blur. Like using an old camera and twisting the dial up until you can't see shit. He lets the rocks in his throat settle down into his chest. Fading out, like a freshly painted watercolour painting let out to dry in the rain. It's okay, he tells himself. Feeling empty and sucked out and so hollow his eyes are dry is okay. It's better to feel nothing than feel the crippling stab of grief.

"We're here," Yakov coughs out. His car has pulled up to the car park of a church. Ominously peering down at the people there, bells ringing from the top. It welcomes them with shivers set into their bones and goosebumps rippling across their pallid skin. Crowds dressed in black shuffle, wiping white snowflakes from their clothes like the way Yuuri is trying to disguise the tears wiped from the corner of his eyes.

Alien light-beams splay dust-speckled fingers between grey clouds, stretching to caress the space between the skaters in the car. It's a long shot, but with the snow guzzling in the wind and the cold snapping at their exposed necks; it's like a sign from Grandad Plisetsky himself.

"Okay," Yuri coughs a cloud out of unused lungs. Eyes a desert, ropes are tied, bulging knots at each corner of crimson flesh, stretching with every pulse of blood. Muscles shrivel up dry, sweat mixing in to make them tight- concrete slabs across heavy bones. Come on feet, everyone is staring.

Red hair flashes in the distance and he ignores the familiar look of the nurse, ignores the sturdy form of a man not much older than him; concerned brows raised, ignores old family friends, old ladies with wrinkled eyebrows smudged with smoked eye shadow.

March forward, head high. Wind whipping his blond hair around his face, like broken strands of spaghetti. When a hearse pulls up, shiny leather black and gleaming like the tears now pooling around the bags in Yuuri's brown eyes. He feels vibrations from his head to his toes. It's like being cold but it's not- teeth chattering against themselves numbly. Fear.

White lilies collect along the top of a sturdy wooden box. Pale, baby blue flowers peak like a cold Winter frost. How could his granddad fit inside a box like that? Is it big enough? A man so tall- he seemed to touch skyscrapers. A young Yuri straining to look at him, woolly hat almost falling, as this gigantic man peered back with a sunny grin. Surely this isn't the right coffin. Surely this isn't his granddad's funeral.

"It's okay," Yuuri clutches his frail hand in one of his own, sweaty and disgusting and he wonders why he isn't pulling away in embarrassment. Anyone could look over, he doesn't want to be seen holding the guy's hand like a baby. But he doesn't. Instead he holds it tighter. Like if he lets go Yuuri will slip and fall and disappear into death as well.

Four old men pull the coffin from the hearse and Yuri feels his body move like a magnet. Closer until he is only a few feet away. A big hand stops him, fingers too long to be the Katsudon's, and gently a sturdy arm slots into place around his neck at the other side. Viktor's suffocating aftershave fills his senses and he wonders why he isn't shoving the scumbag away from him. Stomping on his stupid, waste of space face until he spits blood and teeth.

"You are doing so well, love," Viktor says shakily, his hand moving up to squeeze the back of his neck. Really, Viktor?

Is wanting to run away... doing well?

Like soldiers, they follow the coffin into the church. Soft, floating acoustic guitar hums, a soft spoken lady singing heart-tugging hymns in Russian, a choir of angelic school kids from the local school. Collective noise that does nothing to fill up the empty space in Yuri's head, nor slows the rapid rampage of his heart. It's like his lungs are giving way, the crowds of mourners turning round to look at a shook boy standing at the back of the chapel. Red, green and blue stained glass cast spectrums across his face. 

Whispers:

"Is he okay?"

"Is that-"

"I heard his mother-"

"Poor kid."

A hand presses his back and his feet move automatically. Tilting his chin up to the ornate ceiling, embellished chandeliers swinging like monkeys on wines. Granddad, I'm sorry. I can't do this. I can't- I can't.

A different hand squeezes his and pulls him down the pew. In the name of the Father and the Son- God, please. Is it too late to sell my soul? I will, you know. Arms and legs, life, you name it. What is this sound? It's his teeth chattering. Why are they doing that?

The priest splashes water across his granddad's coffin, a shower of drops as it speaks a low rumble Yuri blocks out. May our prayers comfort his family. Kill me, Yuri thinks. It might be the only thing that could pull these rocks from my chest. A reading from the gospel of- knives line the cavity of his chest like a dartboard, blood oozing through his pristine dress shirt. Prayers of the faithful- why is everything so blurred; hazy colours swimming in his head.

"It's time to go to the graveyard," Yuuri sniffles into his tissue, and when the teen looks up... everyone has left. Flocked outside like starving dogs for rest meat. He's doing enough crying for the both of them, making up for Yuri's peculiarly dry eyes. "They're waiting for you, love. Are you sure you can do this?"

No, he wants to whimper into the fabric of Viktor's suit. I don't want to. I don't want to. Take me home, please. I don't want him to go. 

"Yes," he stands... then stumbles. Knees not as stable as once thought and his friends reach out to help. Alone in a silent church... who would have thought this was how their Russian free skate would go? 

Doors open and the wind smacks them with the hand of nature, cruel and merciless. Water pools from sheer cold in their eyes and the priest looks back at them with sympathy and patience. Two single spots at the top of the carried coffin await.

Yuuri watches as the teenager steps forward with an empty steel in his face, the old men help him to slot into place under the coffin. It's bound to be heavy for him, Viktor at the other side though, helps carry the load.

It's a short walk, but Yuuri feels every step like his ankles are tied. Sludge of tarmac hardening heavily around his ankles. Chest clenching and he watches as the music starts up, the final journey Grandad Plisetsky will make before eternal rest below the Earth.

Heavy, Yuri bites his lip. Eyebrows pinched together... it begins to set in... the realisation. It's not a box. A ethereal, polished thing full of more flowers. His actual granddad is inside, and that in itself is a bitter pill to swallow. 

A few years ago, not much- maybe one or two; he took his granddad to a banquet after a competition. Yuuri had pole-danced half-naked and the old man had to drink to get rid of the image from his head, Yuri laughing his head off into the table cloth. "I'm not d-drunk, Yurochka!" he had chuckled, sloshing vodka around his hands.

"No, but it's very late," Yuri had rolled his eyes and felt the heavy weight as his granddad flung an arm over his shoulder on the walk back. It was the first time he had carried his granddad, rather than the other way around. With the aching shoulder he had on return, he hoped it would be the last.

Every step hurts. Pain receptors fizzing up his spine and he feels strain tense his neck. If he stops, that's it. He doesn't have to give his granddad away. He can keep him forever and they can eat pirozhkis and watch shitty daytime TV. The whole crowd of tear-stained mourners are staring at his trembling deer steps. Is he going to fall? Is he going to crack like he did in the middle of such an important performance?

Yuri can feel the monster in his throat, prying pointy fingers up through his esophagus, scratching their nails along his tongue and teeth. Whether they are sobs or biting insults, he doesn't know. Will he fall to his knees or call that fucking bitch out on her gormless empty-headed stare? Go to hell you trampy slag. Save me, someone, please.

"-And now we we lay our brother down to rest with our brothers and sisters in heaven." Yuri isn't overly religious but he wants to scream. He is the only one who loves his grandad as much as is possible. Why do they get him and he doesn't?

"You have to let go now," Viktor looks a smudged palette of blues and whites and greys. His eyes have begun to tear? Oh. So it appears he does have some form of functioning emotions after all. "Yuri, love."

A pit lies in front of them. A deep, dark, cold pit. How the fuck will his granddad survive in a dingy place like that? This isn't fair- it- it's inhumane. Bubbles collect in his throat and they burst out when the coffin is taken from the groove of his shoulder. 

"No, wait-" he voices and the crowd recoils. 

Pop. Pop. They splurge out like a waterfall, sobs collecting silently in his sleeve and Yuuri pulls him close to his side. He only realises he's been shaking when he feels how steady the older man is. "Hang on-" Yuri stretches his hand out as they begin to lower the coffin.

Viktor shushes him softly like a child and rage collects deep in his belly. "Stop it, you fucker!" he screams at the priest, all eyes gaping at him. "Stop it!" hands are tugging him back as he makes a go for the man.

She's back, isn't she? His mother, with her dirty hands round her neck, breathing hot alcohol into his cheek. When he speaks, it sounds like her, anger spilling adrenaline-fuelled insults at anyone in sight. "You didn't even fucking know my granddad, you fucking hag!" he snaps as an old lady tries to calm him down.

"Yuri, please!" Yuuri is struggling with restraining him, panic welling as the kid yanks himself free.

"Look at you all!" he shrieks, sweat beading on his forehead as his voice takes that manic-edge that always spells trouble. A dangerous cackle splutters out of his throat and he can feel her inside his bones, his DNA. "Where were you when he needed you all?" he swerves his head around and is caught by a rush of dizziness. "Selfish, fucking, hypocritical bastards."

"That's enough, Yuri," Yakov tries to cut in. It's lies, the old man knows. Nikolai had good friends before he was struck down with illness, a good social life with his fishing club and the ladies from the gardening shop.

"All too fucking busy!" he grabs at an old man with a clenched hand around his shirt collar. He looks stunned but doesn't act to shove the kid off. "All too fucking busy," he repeats quietly, to himself. Broken words, anger melting away as the tears begin to slide down his tight jaw.

I was too fucking busy for him. 

I left him.

I chose skating.

"Can we continue?" the priest looks to Viktor who nods and pulls Yuri away from the stranger. "Yes, I'm so sorry." I hate you, Yuri thinks. Then he says it with a bitter laugh, because... why not?

Bells ring out and Yuri lets his bones fall to waste. Jellyfish legs against the hard line of Viktor and he watches as they lower his granddad into the ground. Yuuri joins, encircling the teen in his arms. "It's okay, you are going to be okay," he whispers over and over again. Broken, fucking record.

He thought he could do this without making a scene. But maybe he was wrong.

"God, please don't let them do it," he chokes up, looking up at Yuuri with flushed cheeks and eyes that just won't stop leaking. His desperate whimpers clutch at the man's heartstrings, tugging them like an angel's harp. "Stop it! Please?" he struggles against the arms pinning him back.

A thud. The coffin hits the bottom and the priest rumbles out a series of low-toned prayers, a mantra of words too fast for Yuri's mind to absorb. Men begin to shovel soil back down to fill the gap separating Granddad Plisetsky from the world, overflowing with love from his grandson to the dark, cold abyss below.

A banshee wail fills the cold, snow-tinged air.

"Shush, my love," Viktor rocks him back and forth. "Your granddad is in heaven now. My father will show him around and his wife is there, looking after him for you."

It's only words. Only soft-spoken reassurances that don't really do much to stop the hurting.

Words won't help him learn to breathe again. Words won't love him back as much as his granddad did. It's just the truth, as harsh and biting as it is. Comfort helps blanket the cracks from the wind but it doesn't erase the fact that they are there. Underneath the cotton, the are sawed deep and will always hurt.

He's gone. His granddad is gone, and today is the final day his body will be above ground. It's an abstract kind of statement Yuri is finding it hard to register, even as the sky is getting darker and the snow is getting deeper, and the soil pooling on top of his granddad is filling up at an alarming rate.

As the crowd filter out, some shoot wary looks at the teen. Some sympathetic, pats on the arms and kisses on the cheek. Others hurry along. Whispers of, "Just like his mother, yes?" 

His little team of bodyguards are soaked through, snow kissing their lips shades of violet and blue. Surely they want to be at home, not under a navy blue sky, winds howling and sending the lapels of their jackets flying. Viktor, the dumbass- usually such a loud mouth, says nothing. They are waiting like obedient soldiers until Yuri declares they can go.

Shuffled movements stalk towards him and the priest looks at him with a patient expression. He expects a slap and a demand he never returns, his grandfather would be incredibly ashamed. But the man pats his shoulder, "May God look after your soul in this tough time of grief. You are strong enough to get through it."

It takes until the priest is a couple of feet away for the words to slice red, bloody lines down his chest. Cold soil seeps into his knees as he crumples up like a paper crane, chest heaving with sobs he feels scrape his throat with every breath. He's not even mortified Yuuri and Viktor, even Yakov are staring down at him as he cries into his hands.

Why didn't God look after his granddad's soul in his tough time?

On his hands and knees, he crawls to the grave and flops down at the quickly-made marker resting atop. It's temporary, until a tombstone is made. But its words: Nikolai Plisetsky feel as weighty as a crushing headstone on Yuri's psyche.

"Take me too," he begs and the dirt and muck is tarnishing his face, stones digging into his openly-splayed palms. Already, worms are burrowing under. Maggots and flies, rats with grossly-worn down teeth submerging themselves to taste a bite of corpse flesh below. "I want to come with you," he chokes on his tears and scratches at the ground until he feels pain begin to radiate in his fingertips.

"Stop, stop it, sweetie!" Viktor and Yuuri have been tugging at him. Yuuri manages to get his hands away, locked tightly, hands clenched around his wrist. "You are making yourself bleed."

"Come on, let's go home," Viktor is smoothing down the drenched strands of hair by his face and holding his chin gently. Get your fucking hands off me- low life, talentless, piece of-

Exhale. Inhale. 

It's hard to quell this fire that arises when every word is a stoke to the amber coals. 

"I'm not leaving," he says and Yuuri looks torn between setting up camp beside him and swinging the teen over his shoulder and going home. "I know it's hard, but you have to say goodbye, Yurio."

Goodbye?

How many goodbyes is sufficient? Is his granddad looking down on him with a little clipboard- one, two, three, okay six goodbyes- free to go. It's all just meaningless; all just empty, papery, broken words to fill bottomless gaps inside them all. Maybe weak-minded, naive fools like Yuuri fall for such shit, but Yuri isn't one such fool.

"Go," he commands, words biting. "I don't want any of you here. I want to be alone."

"You can be alone at home," Viktor kneels down, promising, he's strained with exhaustion and weary with frostbite. "If you don't you're going to get sick, Yuri, and you need something to eat."

How many hours have passed? How many hours did he stand by his granddad's grave as the sun sunk milky pink into the sky and orange-tinged blue made way to the deep tones of the night. Possibly several.

"Just fuck off!" he grits his teeth against the waves that come and go, the way his mother's image keeps popping into his head, the way he keeps seeing her laughing in the corner of his eyesight. It's sending him all sorts of crazy and he just needs to lie down and sleep beside his granddad until all of the worries and stresses of the world are gone.

"We'll be back tomorrow," Yuuri jumps in, eyes darting back and forth between the pair. It's been a long day for him too on a night with little rest, eyelids feeling heavy. "I promise, as soon as you wake we can come back."

The teenager is staring out across the mass of graves at something in the distance, brown muck slicks oily like war paint on his face- and his hands, and his clothes. Like a vacant building, abandoned for years, he looks hollow from the outside.

"Yuri, are you listening?"

Falling back, he curls up on his side in the foetal position. Hands clenched into his soiled suit lapels, shaking as he waters the already soaked ground with the tears steadily pouring from closed lids.

"I want to sleep here," he says to himself. "I want to stay with granddad."

Yuuri shares a look with the two men with him. It's a joint union of helplessness and it's obvious they are drowning. Submerged in water out of their depth. 

"It's only his body now, love," Viktor tries, his throats getting a little tight-sounding. "You know he's not really here. But he is looking down on you and he's probably angry you are in such a state," he tugs at the dirty shirt it an attempt to make him smile.

"A couple of hours, that's all I ask. You need to eat and sleep and get washed. Then you can take all the time you need to spend here," Viktor places hands under his armpits and pulls upwards. He doesn't want to have to bodily remove the kid but he will if he has to.

Shrugging the snakes slithering over his body away, Yuri stands and swats at them. He knows his way back to the graveyard, he can show his face at Viktor's to get them off his back and return with some snacks for his granddad.

"Good," Viktor lights up with relief and Yuri takes pride in smudging soil and muck over the white tiles of his kitchen.

 

"I'm so proud of you, Yurio," Yuuri is twitching worried fingers over and over as he stands by the other's bed. He should be sleeping. It's not his fucking problem anymore. The funeral is over. Yuri is free from their fussing and babying. He is on his own now and he doesn't need fucking anyone else.

"I don't blame you for your outburst at the church, anyone would have reacted the very same." Somehow Yuri doubt this, when he thinks of the way his tone mirrors that witch's and how his words are shaped so beautifully sharp, like crystal, to cut with precision. "It's hard when so many feelings are built up inside- to get them out in the right way, or the right order... it's not easy."

I don't want to hear this. I don't care. I don't need you anymore.

"But you were so brave, Yuri. We all think that you were," he reaches out for a hug and is surprised when his arms are slapped away. They aren't fucking friends. He is trapped in a prison while they try playing house. Well, it's not on. Not anymore. (I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!)

"Yuri?"

Go to hell, you bastard. It was because of you- I was wasting my time in Japan, wasting time fighting you for Viktor, wrangling his hands from you when I should have been wrangling the life back into my granddad. 

It's because of you. All of it. Always.

(Help me.)

"I know you're angry we made you leave, but it's so late. You were probably starved and freezing."

Trying to overthrow a waste of space namesake like you? All those days spent skating... what was it for? Hours upon hours upon hours poured down the drain- he chokes on the thought. Blood pooling in his cheeks as he struggles for breath.

"I'm proud of you," he hears his granddad say, gruff voice hoarse from years of smoking.

But it was all lies. When he looks down at the blood in his fingernails, and the bruises, and the blisters, and the calloused scars of his hands. The hurt looks of the crowd, the way Yuuri is anxiously wringing out his hands like a wet cloth, Viktor and Yakov backs aching with the strain of running after a teenager capable of looking after himself.

How on Earth would he be proud.

The feeling hits him like a truck, his body bounce-bounce-bouncing on impact. He feels the splat, the suction pull of guilt, crippling his every limb.

"You need help, Yuri," he settles for resting his hand on the back of the blonde's pyjama-covered back. "I think it might be good to talk to a professional person who is better at helping with these kinds of feelings."

I need to leave.

Yuuri has his eyebrows tilted in a hopeful mess of despair. Poor, withered Yuuri. He just wants everything to be okay, and- and it's not. It can't.

"Okay," he replies hollowly and nods, and nods, like a dog until Yuuri pisses off to bed with Viktor and he shrugs out of his pyjamas and replaces them with a hoody and jeans.

It's a lucky Viktor's bordering on an alcoholic and he doesn't have the sense to hide his keys. They splay their cool hands against the counter beside a decreasing bottle of vodka and he slips the front door open and heads off with his backpack.

He's not running away. No... not really.

It's just not right to let his granddad sleep alone, cold and soaking under the crushing weight of debris. He has to get to him before the Earth suffocates him, before the air runs out in the box, before his mother gets to him and stabs his throat for real this time.

When he gets to the city centre, he realise he has little clue where to go. It was a numb journey and he's already shit with directions. Surely it's not within walking distance. He coughs for breath, fingertips fizzing. A dull pain has begun to stir.

"Yuri!" he looks up as the flash of a motorbike pulls into view. Run, that little ounce of sanity shouts. 

But Yuri's feet are froze, waiting for the cyclist to come into view. Serial killer or not, he's feeling reckless.

"What are you doing out here?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..... thank you my sweet cinnamon rolls for reading!!!
> 
> thoughts and opinions fuel me!! critique!!! etc!!!!!! feel free!!!!!!! :)x


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter!!!  
> man, writing this story is addictive!!!
> 
> again, trigger warning for this chapter, as yuri is undergoing some disordered thoughts and if anyone feels at all like that I demand you seek professional help. always. there is a way out. nobody can make themselves well alone. you need and are worthy of the help you deserve.
> 
> after writing this chapter I heard the song "feel something" by jaymes young- I feel it fits this chapter pretty well! it's a sweet tune- give it a listen if you ever have a chance!!!! :)x

Retina-scorching illuminations mellow down to candle flickers; the dinosaur rumblings of a motorbike softening to a kitten purr. Footsteps loud, hard on wind-bitten ears, thump down along stepping stones of puddles to where Yuri is standing, hoody beating round him as he shivers in the air.

"What are you doing out here?" the guy repeats, and for a serial killer he speaks in a pretty soft tone. "I have no money," Yuri says calmly, on impulse and the figure freezes. "I can lend you some... but where are you going?"

Familiar. Accented tone registering something in the foggy abyss of his skull. Looking up from his clenched hands at last, he recoils at the sight of Otabek Altin- a fellow skater; a cold-looking, keeps-himself-to-himself- type of guy.

Yuri's favourite kind.

"It's you," he blinks and there Otabek is- frowning sadly from across the crowd of mourners. Yuri didn't even have the manners to go and say hello. Crimson begins to stain his mind, a little bit perhaps leaking to his cheeks as well. He saw everything. The screaming, the yelling, the insults. He saw... her- in every fibre of his DNA.

"Last time I checked," Otabek doesn't smile but he does a thing with his eyes that looks a little more real than the slimy mask of a toothy grin. Drops of rain catch at the gelled-up curve of his raven hair and he shakes them away like confetti with a gentle brush of his fingers. "You going somewhere?"

Yuri thinks of a grave marker. A moist layer of crumbly soil and greedy weeds. A heart torn from a ribcage, pulsing red oil into the Earth for the maggots to drink.

"Maybe," he shrugs, letting his back rest against the street lamp. Ignoring the way the cool rain soaks into his clothes and droplets slide down his face. Otabek stands expressionless; patient and thinking. "I'm sorry about your grandfather," he says after a few beats. It was to be expected. Still... the words sting like the press of a knife against raw flesh.

Thighs and calves tremble with the pulsing need to escape. "Okay," Yuri nods, his muscles stretched tight with anxiety. Otabek looks a bit awkward, scratching at his chin and Yuri swallows, trying again. "Thanks for coming, today."

"Don't worry about it," the man straightens out and places his hand on the seat of his bike, petting her with the tenderness Viktor pets Makkachin, or perhaps Yuuri. "I don't know what you're going through... but-"

A raise of a hand, Yuri cuts him off as he bites razor teeth into his fist. For a change he's not trying to be fucking rude- Otabek isn't a fussy leech like the others... but he just- "Stop," he begs, a sudden, uneasy desperation spilling through the words. "I don't want to-"

Otabek nods quickly, trying to ease the explosion brimming in his eyes and under his spider-crawling skin. Diffuse what may quickly become a catastrophic disaster.

"I just want-" Grandpa. Breaths catch sharply, matted tangles of blonde hair trapped in the hairbrush. He refuses the urge to keep tugging and tugging until he's breathing so quickly he's seeing black spots.

"Do you want to come for a ride?" Otabek cuts in, a sword slicing away the tumultuous barrage swamping his consciousness. Already he's peeling off his own helmet and pressing it forward into Yuri's gnawed-at hands. "I'll go slow if you want."

Granddad would have a heart attack.

To even consider the notion of his Yurochka climbing on the back of motorcycle- of all things, with a borderline stranger, no less. "Death traps," he had tutted as they sped by on the street, ignoring the way his grandson's eyes lit up. Blue fireflies that trailed after until the bike was out of sight.

"Okay," he takes the helmet from Otabek, who at the same time, reaches down, clicking it securely in place. "What will you-" he points at the top of the dark-haired man's head- the lack of protection, and gets shrugged off like cigarette ashes on Yakov's lap.

He's not a fuss like Yuuri or Viktor. If Otabek says it's okay... it's probably fine.

"C'mon," Yuri's eyes widen as he climbs onto the bike, sturdy and secure, the older boy pulls on one of Yuri's fingers until he's tumbling gracelessly into the seat. Embarrassedly, he's trying to avoid any and all contact as his face heats. Most likely evaporating the rain splashed across his cheeks. It doesn't go unbeknown to the older guy, who in turn gives a low chuckle, not dissimilar to the murmur of his bike, and that sends a strange kind of prickly feeling down the back of Yuri's neck.

"You have to actually sit on the seat, you know?" he turns around to narrow brown eyes in mirth, cotton-soft sort of smirk playing around his features. "It's okay if you touch me. I don't bite- I swear!"

Immediately pulling away as if he's been branded with iron, the teen scoffs and splutters. The cheek! He flops down in what seems to be a huff, and presses himself flush against Otabek just to prove a point. Fingertips definitely not burning as they clutch venomously around the man's thicker waist. Pink ghosting his cheeks, purely because of the cold. Ice-kissed chills circling each and every vertebrae of his spine.

"Better," the guy says. "Hold on tight!"

It's a shock to the system when Otabek kicks the bike into gear, the roar of her coming to life and he steers her with skilled hands- the glide on the wet, glowing street as smooth as caramel. Practically squawking, Yuri squeezes tighter and shoves his nose against the man's neck shamelessly as the speed slowly picks up. A wave of adrenaline is released from exhausted glands and it sends his blood all hot and alive as his heart gallops. Peculiar and wonderful, all at once. "Slower?" Otabek shouts through the whip-whip-whip of the wind against their ears and Yuri shakes his head. A palpitation of a broken heart, "Faster!"

"Yes, sir," the older man grins and obeys, pushing his precious love up a gear and she swoops the empty paths with a seductive caress. Akin to the tender glaze of their skates on the ice. Yet also with the possessiveness and power of an eagle scouring hungrily for prey. It's only them and the open road- driving with the pellets of rain pursing through red-raw skin until they beg for no more. Nightlife flickering by like a whirlwind, a neon windmill, a illuminated spectrum of the city view from the circular spin of a carousel ride. Petrol, cloying and stinking in his senses; pure, masculine cologne and the smell of the outside world. Cigarette smoke and drunken lady screams. Glass bottles smash like fireworks.

His head is spinning. Really it is. A concoction of yes, yes, this feels good and, no, no- don't think about anything else but this.

What better distraction than the risk of death?

"Yuri, 'kay?" he shouts and when he risks a glance back, Yuri sees a halo of light and a dusting of white wings on either side of his shaved head. Don't stop. Keep driving. Drive and drive until I can't think, or see, or feel. "I'm good," he whispers, too quiet to hear and squeezes his fingers into Otabek's jacket a little tighter. Take me away from it all. I beg you.

"Watch this," they swerve down an alleyway, and Otabek picks up speed and steers her with precision. It's far too fast, and far too dangerous, and Yuri feels safe even though he knows he shouldn't. With the squeeze of his fist, twist of an arm, the bike is doing laps in a circle that has Yuri's neck swaying side to side like he's on a rollercoaster ride. A goddamn, awful squeal tears out of his vocal chords and Otabek changes direction and another humiliating laugh betrays him.

"I won't let you fall off," Otabek promises as they slow down, the rain picking up as they clock miles straight up a narrow road. It's somehow intimate. He looks back, despite the fact it could kill them both, and his eyes are liquid brown. With a pang in his chest he thinks... Yuuri. And that disturbing thought is enough in itself to make him hold tighter and pray to God he never has to get off.

But all things come to an end: a cold awakening at the end of a dream, a shattering of illusions, a fantasy washed clean with reality, a good, kind-hearted person sent to bed in a lonely tomb. "Here," he slows near a neon-lit-up building with waxy, green plants pressed along its glimmering doors like groupies.

"My hotel," Yuri blinks and accepts Otabek's hand off his bike. They're both soaked through and he feels like he's coming down from a drug-fuelled high. "I guess I'll see you around," Yuri goes to make a move and Otabek has the nerve to let out a fucking incredulous laugh. "Where are you going? Come up to my room to get dried, you idiot."

A strange, older boy inviting him up to his hotel room? Granddad Plisetsky, had he not been already dead, would have had seventeen simultaneous heart attacks. For sure.

A pause, Otabek jolts like he's been electrocuted by some kind of invisible presence. To Yuri's fascinated surprise, the boy goes bright red in the darkened light. "I- I don't mean that the way it sounds!" his eyes are bright, ever-widening globes. "I just mean- I can take you home now instead if you want?" 

It's strangely... he can't quite find the word.

"Okay," he studies the cool relief dampening down the guy's blush through the safe haven of his fringe. "Where do you keep your bike?" Otabek indicates somewhere around the side and they chain up his prized possession before stopping at the door of the hotel. "How was the drive?"

Magnificent. Magical. Like all of my senses came alive for the first time since I looked over at Yuuri and... realised my world had been destroyed. I feel broken and numb but every second we drove, I felt shook wide awake.

"It was fun," he says, with a maybe-there hint of a smile. "Thanks."

 

Otabek has his own hotel room. A relief he didn't even know concerned him until they open the door to just one king-sized bed. White, soft sheets tucked in at every corner. Orange, mellow lamps giving the room a hazy glow. "I'll go and get some towels," he strides into the bathroom, giving Yuri his first, real look at the man who picked him up at the side of the road like a stray, and the teen is left dripping on the carpet.

No axes peaking out from under his pillow, no pools of blood hidden under the bed, nor chains or ropes or methods of torture. Otabek doesn't appear to be a serial killer. Although, perhaps wondering about that is a bit futile now. 

"Switch on the kettle," he calls and Yuri blinks at the plastic contraption on the dressing table. He's well acquainted with hotel rooms and suitcases, the tiny pots of milk and sachets of sugar. No signs of character litter the room, so perhaps Otabek's stay has been fairly short. 

"Here," he snaps alert and raises his chin to the sight of the man in the mirror, standing a good head taller behind him. Only now does Yuri look at himself: pale skin; red blotches under his eyes; worn down and sunken in. Even his hair looks brittle and malnourished. God. How far he's fallen from the days he would spend braiding his hair and moisturising his skin. "You can wash and wear this until your clothes dry... if you want, of course."

Why is he doing this?

He takes the clothes in a detached kind of way, eyes rooted to the corner and definitely not on the guy in front.

Is the pity too strong to ignore?

"Thanks," he locks himself in the bathroom for an hour, and cries when he peels back the glued layers of his clothes- met with the image of his body reflected back. It's a choked sob at first. Until it brings tears to his eyes and he's trickling drops upon silent drops into the bath like a leaky tap. Steam rises and he pulls his knees to his chest, hugging them in one breath, and dragging bitten-down nails in red tracks, in the next. It's so hot that it burns... but it blocks out the gaping expanse of the thoughts he's avoiding.

Otabek stands at the other side, hand raised dumbly to knock. But he puts it away and waits, nibbling his lip at the edge of the bed instead.

Bile rises up his throat, and he shoves a fist into his mouth to hold it back for once. The last thing he wants is his fellow skater to hear him puking up his guts like an idiot. The embarrassment of the situation is already strong enough without fucking adding to it.

Otabek's clothes hang off his frame, even though the boy is only a couple of years older and isn't particularly tall himself. Soft, grey hoody that smells musky with aftershave and sweet like body soap. It's calming in a strange kind of way, and coupled with comfortable sweatpants he feels a little more able to face the older man now.

"You look good," Otabek coughs out in surprise. Perhaps in replace for, 'Fuck, you took ages. What were you doing?' and he moves to take Yuri's wet clothes to hang on the radiator. A brow involuntary twitches. Good? 

If this looks good, Otabek needs his fucking eyes testing. 

"Your skin is really red though," he leans in and his face is still set in stone, the only change being the soft concerned tilt of brown eyes as they roam. Yuri flushes deeper under the scrutiny. "Was the water too hot?"

"A little bit," Yuri admits and moves away from his direct line of vision to sit awkwardly on the edge of the bed. Otabek says nothing and opens the curtains to look out at the half-hearted view of the city. Unbeknown to Yuri, he can see the younger skater's reflection through the window and in fact, rests his eyes on that.

"The rain is still pretty bad," Yuri takes the second cup of tea on the dressing table and sips it as an excuse not to talk. Why is he here? Otabek is a stranger... and he should be with his granddad. Not here, talking shit with a man he barely knows as more than an acquaintance.

"It's harder to drive in the rain," Otabek utters to himself, tracing little patterns as the droplets slide spider-web tracks down the glass. In the distance, a mini avalanche collapses from a drain pipe and frightens the stray dog napping below.

Yuri pulls his legs up to cross on the bed and rubs the irritated skin on his wrist. "I saw your performance," his eyes raise at that. "It was... remarkable."

Performance? Is that what they're calling it? A showcased disaster on ice, that's what it was. He should be a laughing stock- to call himself a professional skater and crumple up like that? Katsudon himself could have done better.

"Bullshit," he scoffs out a bitter laugh and Otabek spins his ass on the windowpane. "No- not bullshit. I've seen it. You haven't." No arguing there. Yuri isn't even quite sure he remembers the majority of the skate.

With a few stiff movements, the man swaps from the window to flop down beside Yuri on the bed. "Your clothes should be dry in half an hour, hopefully," he smells even nicer inside- when the smell isn't suffocated with fumes and rain. "Do you need anything?" he seems uncomfortable with sitting still and runs long palms down his thighs. It's a strange quirk, a little self-comforting gesture.

"I'm okay," Yuri closes his eyes and runs fizzing fingertips through his damp hair. A wary look. Dusted lightly with concern and the strange flavour of genuine, that Otabek always seems to radiate. "Are you really?" and with that- he crumbles.

It's not intentional. Surely he's cried enough these past days for the grief to have emptied out. But no. Liquid springs up in his eyes and suddenly the view of his lap is blurry. Please don't speak, he begs of Otabek. Please don't say a single, fucking, pointless word.

He doesn't- surprisingly enough, and instead reaches over and gingerly places one of those big palms on his back. Warm and unfamiliar, soothing circles as he tries to hide his hitching breath and scrubs tears off with his sleeve. When the fuck did he turn into such a crybaby? It's not like blubbering about it will bring granddad back.

"Easy," Otabek utters, pulling locked limbs away from his face. "C'mere," he opens up a place by his shoulder and embarrassment flushes Yuri's cheeks as he's pulled in. It's like a weight he can't shift from his stomach... all the time. No matter how hard he tries. It comes back and hits him like bricks again and again. Will everyday feel like this? How could the pain ease when the gap where his granddad should be... will always be empty?

I can't- he feels tense and uneasy in Otabek's grasp. Emotions locked in like a bubbling pressure cooker, a pot of over-filled soup- the lid rattling away as the temperature rises. Keep it in. All in. Until he's alone. Shaking with the weight of it all, he's tied down in a lake with chunks of concrete as his feet. Sharks circle his orbit, snakes sliding up his legs to purse venom in his bloodstream, hands, hands, hands dragging him down. Granddad isn't fishing in the little boat beside, tugging him up for air when he goes down. Instead he's left to sink and he's forgotten how to swim without arms holding him up.

"Breathe," Otabek hums in his ear. Foggy and faraway. He had forgotten where he was. "You need to keep breathing in and out, Yuri. Or I'll have to phone for help."

"I am!" he bites and it comes out all wrong. Gulping like he's just bobbed to the surface and he chokes out snot and tears into the guy's jacket.

"Good," he doesn't seem disgusted and keeps up his soft circles. "Keep it up. In and out. Think about nothing else." It's not that fucking easy. "If you don't, we can't go back out on the bike." Now Yuri listens, hands he didn't even remember moving are buried under Otabek's jacket to clutch tightly in his t-shirt. Flinching, he pulls back and the older man holds his wrists until it looks like he's back down to Earth.

"I'm sorry-" he begins, flustered and he has to get up- get out of here. "Don't be," Otabek shrugs and there's still a masked panic in his eyes. God. Kill him please. "Yuri, it's a good thing to cry." Please stop talking, he thinks, mortified. Then he glares at Otabek with a look that hopefully reaffirms that statement. 

"What time is it?" he rummages around for a clock or something. His voice is brittle and hoarse and he wants to cover his face with a bag. "Three in the morning," Otabek slots his phone back into his jeans and Yuri bolts upright. He has to get back to granddad. "I have to go."

"Where are you staying?" Otabek makes a move for the other's clothes at the radiator, checking if they're ready. "Doesn't matter," Yuri snaps. "I'm not going there." Their eyes meet and Yuri reins in his snarling teeth and unclenches his hands. A feral dog shown a glimpse of a steak. He looks tip-toey, and Yuri doesn't quite want to make himself another enemy. Not Otabek anyway.

"Can I ask where you're going?"

Yuri folds his arms across his chest and stands up straight. Trying to look tougher than he feels with a tear-reddened face and soaking blonde strands framing his cheeks. "You can."

"Will you give me an answer?" Otabek raises an eyebrow and mirrors his stance, making the younger roll his eyebrows. "No promises there."

Thunder rumbles from outside, the city shaking and a torrent of rain splutters drum beats onto puddle-lakes. It's a fucking brutal night. He thinks of granddad under the murky skies and wants to make a run for the door. "I'll drive you- if you tell me where it is."

Again, thinking after he speaks, Otabek chops up his own sentences. "Not in a stalker way- it's just very late and it's not very safe and-"

"I know what you mean, idiot," Yuri rolls his eyes and swallows back the gentle tease of a smile. This man, so rock-hard and sturdy- he turns to putty every once in a while, and it's... interesting. He supposes. "But I want to go alone."

Silence. Bathroom fan whirrs; clock on the wall ticks; the weather keeps up as a comfortable sheet of white noise.

"You can go alone," Otabek concedes. "But I'm driving you there, and driving you home. Whatever it is you want to do... that's okay. But it's not worth getting yourself killed over it."

Granddad is worth it. Every single time. How could he not be?

"The church," Yuri coughs out, uneasy worms writhing about under his skin, and he raises his eyebrows in a feigned threat- as though to challenge Otabek to speak out. "I want to go back to the church."

"Okay," Otabek shrugs, turning his back so Yuri can't see his reaction. Before opening up the closet and pulling out a second helmet.

 

It still stuns him awake- like gulping cold water after brushing your teeth. A little less fear this time, coating his crippled bones like heavy paste, and a lot more sparkling eyes; giggles muffled by the engine's roar. 

If a few tears splutter out, what of it?

Otabek feels unflappable, a pillar of steel, warm and big; hard in the cocoon of his arms. A safety net he's grabbing onto, fingers worming between the rope strands and attaching to the slippery sheet of his jacket. God, it's not like any sort of hug he's ever got. 

Smoke chokes up their lungs as they stop. Rusted, creaky gates squeak on an open latch as they sway in the storm. "I'll wait here," Otabek keeps the lights of his bike on and Yuri shakes his head. "Go home. I want to stay for a while."

Suddenly the other man is closer, breathing a visible mint-tinged cloud before Yuri's wide eyes and squeezing a hand into a tingling shoulder. "Then I'll be here a while too." Already their clothes are soaked again, and Yuri frowns, perplexed by him. "You'll be cold-" he falters.

Stop playing the fucking martyr, he would think, had this been anyone else but the firm, unassuming, unreadable gaze of the older skater.

"I'm wearing about three layers, I'm not going to die," Otabek folds his arms and shrugs. This should be irritating for Yuri- a stubborn, unshakable man like this. It's not though. He doesn't bother to question it.

Suit yourself, stupid idiot. He finds his grandpa's grave with muscle memory, worming down the path and with every step, trepidation grows. Is this what the rest of his life is going to be? Anytime he wants to talk to granddad? Instead of a few buttons dialled in the phone- a lonely walk down a fucking graveyard?

"Can you hear me?" he says to the marker, cringing at the ugly curl of his own harsh voice. "Grandpa?"

Silence.

An image. Hands clawing up through the soil, bloody and flesh opening up. "Help!" he can hear his granddad screaming through mouthfuls of Earth. "I'm down here!" God, no. Yuri tumbles to his knees and digs at the ground below. Oesophagus clogged up and choking for an ounce of life as the faceless, black creatures tie him to a coffin- too small, too claustrophobic for him. "I'm alive!" Yuri can hear past layers of worms and maggots. "It was all a mistake!"

Brown puddles stain his knees as he scoops muck out of his granddad's way. "Yurochka, please!"

"I miss you," Yuri says, his voice peculiarly tiny, and his body doesn't have the energy to keep digging. He's elbow deep at this stage and it's getting hard to stay upright. I've let you down, again. I always do. But I'll make it up to you. Someday. I promise.

Otabek checks his phone every couple of minutes, and when an hour has passed, he goes to check on Yuri. Greeted by the sight of the youth, in a small pit of his making, passed out and covered in sludge.

"C'mon, Yuri," he shakes his shoulder, panicked. "Wake up!"

The boy startles and stares around in a bleary confusion. He fell asleep? "You scared the fucking shit out of me!" Otabek says instead of all the other phrases making themselves known on his tongue. "Why are you still here?" Otabek looks at him like he really does think the Russian is completely thick.

"Why would I not be?" he pulls him up out of the grave and decidedly ignores the fact Yuri must have been... digging. It's unnerving. In all sorts of ways. How grief unhinges the mind- eating away at their hold on reality like piranhas. Watching the jigsaw be scattered apart, the boy he saw as a soldier, suddenly looking so lost. Otabek stares at the cool, aqua of his eyes, and thinks this is a boy more suited to be a general than a soldier. Strength shines past the hurt and the pain. A determination in every trembling movement. It's awe-inspiring and for a second, Otabek thinks he's going to hell for thinking that in this moment, he's never seen a soul look more beautiful.

"You're running on nothing, idiot," he coughs out, a rosy blush casting weakness across his cheeks and up his ears. "Let's go get something to eat."

 

It's dead of the night time, and an old diner, still running on the slavery of minimum-wage waitresses and neon flickering lights, beckons them in. "Coffee?" she's middle-aged, greying hair and red stained lips chew a pen.

"Pizza," Otabek orders, "-and two milkshakes with cream." She doesn't hide her perplexed expression, folding sturdy arms across large boobs. "Take a seat."

Sliding into a booth, Yuri plasters muck onto the linoleum, red seats. Vibrations ripple like kinetic energy through free molecules and Otabek chucks one of his wet jackets off, tossing it across the table. "You're probably going to catch a cold, anyway... but here."

Looking like he wants to protest, Yuri swallows them down and nods. He looks rather- Otabek bites down whatever sinful word he wanted to follow that up with. This isn't the time, for fucks sake. But the boy does look rather endearing wrapped in his black clothing. Even if his hair is sticking to his forehead, bloodshot, purple-lined eyes darting back and forth manically.

"I'm sorry- for everything," he says like it pains him and Otabek leans forward on his elbows. "Why are you apologising? None of this is your fault."

"It's not your..." Job? Concern? Place?

"I wanted to help you- I'm pretty useless at it but- I want to help you."

You can't, Yuri wants to scream. Bang it against his stupid head until he listens. But it sends guilt across his pink-tinged cheeks. No.

"I'll be fine," Otabek knows he will be. But the shaken, plastered-on assurance in his tone tells him the boy doesn't believe the words himself.

"Enjoy," the waitress dumps the tray unceremoniously onto their table, glasses clanging against a steaming plate. Otabek halves the pizza, cheesy strands breaking away seductively and he hands Yuri a fork, not ignoring the way a jolt of panic splashes across his face. 

Yuri wills his hands to stop jittering, steadies his breath so his fluttering heart goes unnoticed. It's not a fucking big deal. He tells himself this. It's not like he can't do this. He can. Oh, god, he can. It's stopping that's the fucking problem. Otabek can't see him like this- he's already seen him in ways Yuri would rather he hadn't.

"Do you like pizza? -I didn't even think to ask." Otabek looks suddenly startled and Yuri has to swallow down all kinds of prickly panic.

"Everyone likes pizza," he scoffs, hiding his eyes in his fringe and shoving a piece down his throat with a feigned confidence he wants to believe.

It's like watching a beast come to life, Otabek thinks with awe. God, for such a little guy he has an impressive appetite. Shovelling the lot down, he doesn't even think Yuri is taking the time to swallow. It's almost adorable, pizza sauce smearing his cheeks and chin, completely in another world. Otabek stalls his own chews, chin resting on his palm as he tries not to stare.

I can't stop. Yuri can feel the panic in his blood, his face externally calm. But there's something else taking over and it has a greater control over his movements than he does. Otabek must be staring in disgust, but he can't fucking will himself to care. There's a gaping, exposed expanse inside and it needs to be stuffed up tight. So, so tight he can't goddamn breathe. 

This shouldn't be happening. Not in front of other people. He's not so far gone to control himself for a couple of minutes. Otabek looks up, "You still hungry? Want dessert?" Yuri wants to sob. Obviously the man doesn't realise he's not helping. Whether he's disgusted by Yuri or not, he's feeding the monster.

"Yeah," he says instinctively. It's past the point of concern now. Chugging the ice-cream milkshake, his stomach tight, he doesn't even take the time to taste the thick slice of cake as he scoops chunks down his throat.

Fast. So very fast. Otabek feels like a creep. A complete, perverted weirdo for wanting to watch the teen eat the entire selection. Upon later reflection, he hadn't realised there was anything wrong. Failing to twig onto the fact that the second of closed eyes was in pain- not delight. The rapid movements not in excitement, or in hunger, but in an uncontrolled frenzy. He clouded his mind with a distorted view- hormones probably, blocking away what should have been so obvious.

"Did you enjoy that?" he asks as they stroll out into the electric blue sky, tiger-stripes of orange coating the tips of the buildings.

Yuri touches the bloated press of his stomach and ignores the screaming in his head. It's worse- even fucking louder than his mother's. It's a kind of voice that sounds like his, but a little more cruel and a lot more convincing.

"Yes, thank you."

Climbing on the bike, Otabek asks, "Where to?" and with reluctance, he rattles off Viktor's address and curses every god that he knows. If either of the pair have woke in the night to find him gone- he's a dead man. Dead in the sense Viktor will probably have him chained to the room for the rest of his teenage years and Yuuri will have a tracking device ready for his skull.

They pull up into the posh area Viktor lives, the rising sun setting a smoky glow on the twisting curves of ivy. Yuri takes his helmet off slowly and hands it to Otabek.

He twists up his mouth, eyes fixated on the exhausted blonde. "Will I see you again?" he says lightly, blocking out the weight he feels pressed into the words.

Yuri disguises the flicker across his face rather well. "You've got eyes. I take it you will."

"Idiot," Otabek gives his leg a light kick, scoffing out a huff of a laugh that sounds like Yakov after he smokes for too long. "Add me on Snapchat," Yuri says, almost bashfully after a moment. "Get it off my Instagram."

"You just want more followers," Otabek calls as Yuri stalks towards the building. "Damn right," he calls back over his shoulder, giving the older boy the middle finger. It sends a hot warmth in the pit of Otabek's belly and he leaves, his back feeling cold without the tight envelope of the younger boy around it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!!!!  
> I think writing this chapter has made me fall in love with Otabek just a little more???  
> can I just adopt all these adorable ice skating sons???? :)x


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